The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-05-07 00:00:00

were such things as parliamentary etiquettes, and the hon
member for Kilmarnock, Mr. Colquhoun, (cheers,) anxious
to remove every impediment out of the way, and to clear the
course for the withdrawal of the grant, had prepared a bill,
which he had obtained leave this session to introduce into
parliament, the proposal of which bill was, that the act in
question should be repealed (cheers); that is, that by the
authority of parliament the Lord Chancellor of Ireland and
certain of the judges should no longer be visitors of the Col-
lege of Maynooth. (Renewed cheering.) The prayer of this
was strengthened by another circumstance. It so happened
that in the year 1800, just before the union with Ireland,
another act passed the Irish legislature, restraining the powers
of the visitors of Maynooth College, preventing them from
entering into any inquiry respecting the religious discipline
or doctrines taught within the walls ; so that, although by
the former act they continued nominal visitors, by the latter
act they were prevented from efficiently performing the office
of visitors. (Hear.) One act practically neutralised the
other, without repealing it directly (hear) ; and the object
of Mr. Colquhoun's bill was to repeal both of them (cheers),
or at least so much of them as referred to the College of
Maynooth. Then there would be an opportunity for the
hon. and learned member for Tipperary, or any of his com-
panions producing even the appearance of an excuse in any
actof parliament as a screen for Maynooth College. A petition
had been drawn up, then, setting forth, in the first place,
the merits—or rather the demerits—of Maynooth College ;
and, in the second place, imploring the legislature to pass
Mr. Colquhoun's bill. It was for the purpose of signing
that petition they had been assembled that evening, after
they had received further information upon the subject of
the College of Maynooth as a failure, and as to the objects
and merits of the bill. (Hear.) He was happy to be sup-
ported as he was upon that great occasion. He would only
say further at present, that we were very often told that
our petitions were of no use—that they were treated with
contempt in the House of Commons, and that we petitioned
in vain. (Hear.) We were told superciliously enough that
the House of Commons did nut care for all our petitions.
He was not very sure but that was true enough at present,
that our petitions were treated in a very cavalier way in the
house, but then, although sent to the house they were not
confined to the house—(hear, hear,)—they went through the
country. Our petitions, our speeches with regard to those
petitions, and our protestant agitation for the truth and
against error—these were all leavening the mind of the pub-
lic who would soon have an opportunity of selecting another
House of Commons. (Loud cheers.) He did not say this
from any private information of his own respecting any in-
tention upon the part of ministers to resign. (Laughter.)
He believed, upon the contrary, that nothing could be fur-
ther from their intention—( renewed laughter) ; but according
to the constitution of these realms no parliament could last
longer than seven years, and no parliament had recently been
allowed to last so long. (Hear.) It must then die a natural
death. The practise had always been to exercise the prero-
gative of the crown and to dissolve it before it had reached
its decrepitude, therefore it could not be long. Independent
of beatings in both houses of parliament, independent of exe-
crations in the country, independent of inconsistencies in
themselves, independent of broken faith, broken pledges,
broken words, broken honour—independent of all these
things, it could not be long, he said, till the people of Eng-
land would have an opportunity of selecting another House
of Commons. (Cheers.) In the mean time what were we
doing ? They (the clergy) were not men who interfered per-
sonally at elections, like popish priests. (Hear, hear.) You
never found them at the hustings ; you never found them
canvassing for votes—no such thing ; but he would tell the
meeting what they did. They interfered not upon the day
of election, but they interfered every day, and every day
throughout the whole year, and year after year, to qualify the
people to act properly at an election. The people got sound
instruction from them in order to know how to exercise their
privileges. The people had duties of various sorts : they had
personal and domestic and relative duties, and from whom
were they to receive the proper instruction for the right dis-
charge of those duties? They had duties which they owed
to their families, duties as parents • and from whom should
they get instruction as to the discharge of those duties, but
from their pastors? They had duties which they owed to
the state, and in proportion as they were invested with pri-
vileges, those duties become responsibilities ; from whom
should they get instruction as to the best mode of dis-
charging those duties but from their pastors ? (Hear, hear,
hear.) Was not God the God of the family as well as the
God of the man ? Was -be not the God of our duty as the
head of a family, as well as the God of our duty as citizens
of the state? Was he not the God of the state as well as the
God of the family ? and was he not the God of the people's
duties as electors, as much as he was the God of their duties
as fathers ? (Hear.) If we were responsible to God for the
exercise of the privileges we enjoyed, both public and private,
who should direct us how to use them? (Hear.) They (the
clergy), then, were teaching the people sound scriptural po-
litics : they wanted the people of England to say, in the voice
of a giant that must be heard, that God, and the word of
God, should not be banished from the origin of British poli-
tics. (Hear.) They wanted the people to say, and to make
the honourable, and the right honourable, and noble, and
learned, who came begging for their " sweet voices" when
the time for election came, understand that the Bible had
been, and must be, in the ascendancy in the British senate.
(Loud cheers.) They wanted the people to tell them they
had no notion of having legislators who could say they were
Protestants, and act as if they were Papists—(cheers) ;—that
they had no notion of men who told them they were members
of the Church of England, the anti-popish Church of Eng-
land, the protesting Church of England, the scriptural
Church of England, whose articles denounced all the abomi-
nations that Romish rubbish had heaped upon the fair face
of primitive Christianity, and yet afterwards declaring they
would sit in the House of Commons to pay money for the
teaching of priests, who were to teach the error of those ar-
ticles, who were to teach the very contrary to that church,
who were to teach that that church was heresy, that all its
members were heretics, and that not one belonging to it could
escape everlasting damnation. (Hear, hear.) The priests
of Rome taught this ; and there were senators who told us
they were members of the Church of England, yet who went
into the House of Commons, and quietly voted away the
people's money to pay those priests of Rome ! (Cries of
shame.) Yes, it was a shame; and who was it that taught
the people all this? How were they to know it if they were
not taught? (Hear, hear.) Who were the right teachers of
this but the clergymen of the country ? (Cheers.) What
was the reason England had fallen into such forgetfulness
of these things, but that the clergy had become too
tender, mild, and forbearing ; that they had confined them-
selves too entirely to spiritual things, and to the personal
duties of men as individuals? (Hear.) They had been teach-
ing their congregations as if the spiritual duties of detached
individuals had nothing to do with the things of the state,
consequently the members of their congregations, whilst they
have had instruction about their personal duties, have been
neglected as to their political duties! (Hear, hear) He heard
a member of parliament once say that he had been ten years
in parliament, and had been to church every Sunday through
those successive years except once, when he was kept away
by sickness, and that he had never heard from the mouth of
a single clergymen, either in town or country, one single
word about his duty as a senator ! (Hear.) And why? Be-
cause the clergy thought it was profane to speak of the duties
of senators. What, was it more profane to speak about that
than to speak about the duties of fathers, mothers, and neigh-
bours ! (Hear, hear.) They did not think it impolitic or
profane to tell them to be honest towards their neighbours ;
was it profane then to tell our senators their duty as neigh-
bours? (Cheers.) The meeting saw then how they (the
clergy) stood ; and that they were instructing the people of
England as far as their voices would reach. In conclusion,
he congratulated the meeting on the fact of the Protestant
agitation having been wonderfully successful. (Loud cheers.)
The Rev. J. N. CONNOR briefly moved the first resolu-
tion, as follows:
" That this meeting are satisfied that the College of May-
nooth, in Ireland, whether considered as a political experi-
ment, or a seminary for education, moral or religious, has
proved a total failure, and worse than a mere failure."
The Rev. HUGH STOWELL rose amidst repeated rounds
of enthusiastic applause to second the resolution. He
had very great delight in seeing his dear friend (the chair-
man) surrounded by so enthusiastic an army of working Pro-
testants. (Hear, hear.) Had he seen him surrounded only
by our rich merchants, or by our men of wealth, of rank, and
influence, he might have feared that our Protestant work
would prove at best but a splendid pageant ; but when he
saw that our Protestant movement was taking a mighty hold
upon the sentiments and the intelligence of the mighty mass
of our mechanics and working men, lie believed then, that
because its basis was broad and deep, its superstructure
would be steadfast and lofty. (Hear, hear.) He believed
there was no better test in the long run that a cause was true
and righteous, if it were open and above broad, than that it
carried with it the mass and multitude of the working classes.
(Hear.) We had not forgotten, when our blessed Lord
and Master herebelow protested against the vices, and abuses,
and errors, and follies of his day, that whilst of the Scribes
and Pharisees, and priests, and rulers, but few followed with
him, the common people heard him gladly. (Hear.) To
the poor the gospel was then preached ; to the poor the gospel
is now preached •, and were he a traveller, and chanced to have
to pass his sabbath in a town where he was a stranger, he
should wish to know where he might hear the sweet silvery
notes of the gospel trumpet gloriously giving forth no uncer-
tain sound ; and he should be disposed to ask, " Where is it
that the poor and working classes love to bend their footsteps,
where is the sabbath speaking bell, that pleasing messenger
which seemed to say to us as to those in olden times, when we
were going with our families and friends to church, we were
glad when it was said to us, ' let us go to the house of the
Lord.' " (Applause.) Aye, where the free sittings were most
crowded, you might take it for granted that there the truth
of Christ was simply and uncompromisingly preached, that
there was no unrelenting reserve, there, there was no dark
book of human traditions and human misrepresentations,
but there we might look for the plain simple truth, unvar-
nished, undisguised, and uncompromised. (Hear.) He had
no question too, that in proportion as Protestant principles
took root among the working classes, Protestant principles
must gradually force their way upwards to the heads of the
community—(hear)—for after all it could neither be denied
nor disguised, that upon the multitude of the people de-
pended the wealth and happiness and the constitution of any
nation (hear) ; and however the nobles and the aristocracy
of a country might be flourishing and prosperous, unless we
had a well-principled, well-informed, moral, religious, sober,
upright, peasantry and body of mechanics, we wanted that
which was to give stability to the entire fabric. The foun-
dation after all was the strength of the structure, and give
him the sound foundation, even before the sound head.
(Hear.) We could not, indeed, have the one effectually
without having the other ; but let us have a firm christian
foundation, and then we could not doubt but that in due time
we should have a noble, beautiful, and symmetrical super-
structure arising from that base. (Hear.) He felt, too,
cheered to see that our working men here appeared to be
men who came with intellectual minds, deeply imbued with
the importance of the subject : that they seemed to discri-
minate between what was sound and false in argument.
They appeared to him as if they carried a great deal of Pro-
testant light infused into their minds. When he was asked
" what are your Protestant associations doing," he pointed to
the numbers of workingmen now composingthernhere and in
Manchester. All he wanted in Manchester was a room large
enough to contain those who were desirous of hearing ; and
if they had a room to contain them, made India rubber,
to expand as it filled, he believed it might beTxpanded more
and more till it burst, for they had, as we had, thousands
coming to their doors who were reluctantly compelled to
return. (Loud cheers.) But this was not all. This move-
ment was not a mere thing of excitement, from the talking at
a public meeting; but thank God, our working men were
protestant advocates in their own little way. (Cheers.) If
they were shipwrights, they were protestant advocates in the
ship-yard ;if they were dyers, they advocated protestant
principles over the dye-vat, and could point out the black—
no, the scarlet dye—(cheers)—as the colour of Rome ; they
could point out also the beautiful blue as the colour of the
true catholic church of England, without any party colour ;
if they were weavers, whilst they were plying their shuttles
and weaving the texture of their web, they were often weav-
ing beautiful protestant arguments, and fresh intelligence;
if they were joiners, whilst they plied the saw and cut away
into the grain of the wood, they were applying the saw of
sound protestant argument, and cutting their way through
some of the old rotten timber of the church of Rome. (Loud
cheers.) And then they were not content simply with car-
rying on the holy warfare in their workshops, but they car-
ried it on in the evening hour by visiting their neighbours,
by watching over their orotestant acquaintances and friends,
that they might not lie lured into the snares of popery,
guarding our protestant lambs that none be drawn out of the
fold among the ravening wolves of Rome. (Loud cheers.)
In this way they were guarding most effectually their neigh-
bours. In several instances they had gone so far—and al-
though it was a delicate negotiation, it was one he would give
them absolution for, as we held it, namely, that absolution
was merely declaratory,—as to be- instrumental in more
than one instance in breaking off an unholy match that was