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

going to take place between a nominal protestant and a papist
—when it was sure the nominal protestapt would have been

drawn over into popery, and have changed light for darkness.
He was happy to see that our workinc, men were the men
suited and adapted for occasions like this, when we had pe-
titions to get up. If they wanted to know how their pro-
testant forces had multiplied in Manchester, let him inform
them of the number of signatures they had obtained to their
petition against Maynooth. Four years ago, their first peti-

iion got 17,000 signatures ; last year it received 21,400, which
was a great advance ; but their petition this year,_ which he

supposed Mr. Colquboun was presenting to the house that
night, or, if not, he would some other night this week, ob-

tarried nearly 27,000 signatures. (Cheers.) Thus the meet-
ing saw the Protestant thermometer in Manchester was ris-
ing at the rate of 5000 a-year! (Cheers.) He thought they
would very soon be at fever heat ; but he hoped, at the same
time, it would be combined with a collected judgment, so

that, whilst they had the greatest energy, they would also
have the greatest discretion. (Cheers.) We wanted, in this

- - -
holy controversy, to imitate Romaniseci, which seemed to be
wise as serpents, terrible as lions, but harmless as doves.

(Hear.) We wished, in this controversy with Romanists,
to render them evil for good ; to have all their wisdom with-

out their craft; to have all their art without their artifice

and all their zeal and boldness without one drop of their bit;
terness, or one atom of their bigotry. (Cheers.) Now, how

,
far were the working men of Liverpool 'going to let the work-
ing men of Manchester be ahead of them this year, in the
number of their
_signatures to this petition ? (Cries of

" None.") In Manchester they had got 27,000 signatures
within a short time : would they in Liverpool get 30,000 ?

Perhaps they could get 35,000 (A voice, " We'll have
50,000," followed by cheers.) He was thankful to see the
progress of the cause, and that many of our merchants, gen-
tlemen of station and influence, were beginning to gather
round, and contend for our Protestant movements. Their
very last meeting in Manchester had a goodly array of rich
merchants, and ladies, and clergy, for men were beginning
to believe they who promoted these movements were honour-

able men, and bad no party objects in view—that they did
not wish to be slaves to conservatism any more than to radi-

calism—but that they professed to be Protestant Christians,
trembling for the ark of God, and willing to lay down their
lives for it. (Cheers.) He was aware that some of the more
political conservatives had drawn back from them, and were

saying, " Why, you sometimes hit a hard blow every way ;
you strike friend as well as foe, in your blind, indiscriminate

zeal; sometimes you give Sir Robert Peel a back stroke as
well as Lord John Russell ;—what do you mean by this ?"

They meant this ;—they loved conservatism, they loved Sir
Robert Peel, they loved the Duke of Wellington, but

they loved Protestant truth ten thousand times better

(Loud cheers.) They said from the bottom of their hearts
God speed Sir Robert Peel, God speed the Duke of Welling-

ton, that honourable and venerable old man—(great cheers)
God speed Lord Stanley—(cheers)—so long as they stood up
in defence of the liberty of Protestant truth ; 'but if they,

through love of expediency—if they, through political
tergiversation—if they, through the fear of man getting the
better o-. the fear of God in their hearts, were to tamper with
Protestantism, and try to betray her more than she had been

betrayed, then they sid, " We know not the Duke of Wel-
lington, illustrious warrior though he be—we know not Sir
Robert Peel, master mind though he is, and splendid as are

his bursts of eloquence—we kno%-v not Lord Stanley, fearless
and honourable as he is, and in debate irresistible as he is,—

when we look at our duty we know nothing else, and we will
by no means consent to any compromise of the truth as it is
in Jesus Christ and the ark of the living God. (Great

cheers.) And he believed that ere long—it might be but a
very little while—we should have our honesty put to the

test. (Hear, heat.) When our conservative friends came
into power, as come into power he believed they must—
(cheers)—spite of all the tenacity with which whiggism clung
to office more than to honour or almost to life, were we going
to dissolve our Protestant Associations? (Loud cries of
" No, no.") Were we going, if one end had been answered
by getting the conservatives into power, to show that we had

been playing the hypocrite merely to accomplish a certain
purpose ? God forbid. (Loud cheering.) We should con-
tinue our exertions the more, for we had need to watch even
a conservative administration, seeing we had not forgotten

that a friend could do more mischief, and on one occasion
had actually done more mischief, than an open enemy.
(Hear, hear.) But we had learned this lesson, not to put our
trust in man, whose breath was in his nostrils, and that if
we had not put our trust in Sir Robert Peel and the Duke
of Wellington more than in God, we should never have
had our beautiful constitution shorn of its right hand, pre-
senting to the eye the melancholy, though splendid, wreck
of its former self. (Hear, hear.) He felt, therefore, that
the time was likely to be near at hand, when we should have

it in our power to'give to the country, and to our conserva-
tive friends, the evidence that we were more than conserva-
tives—that we were Christian conservatives—(hear) :—when
we should show that if we loved conservatism, it was because

we believed it came the nearest to christi•snity, that if con-
servatism was what it ought to be, it would be true protes-
tant, christian, political principle. (Hear.) He would give
nothing for your mere party conservative—for the violent,
headstrong man who would run into the pit as well as walk
on the pure, calm plain of truth, if he only saw his leaders
go before him. (Hear.) What he wanted was that conser-
vatism which took no leader, and called none master save
one, the Lord, for he was the only master; what he wanted
was, that conservatism which followed only where Christ's
gospel lead, and where it led not, though all the world went
before, to stand alone and solitary in isolated conspicuous-
ness and grandeur. (Cheers.) And certain he was, even if
the conservative party should come into power they would
not long keep that power, unless they kept it upon high
christian principle. (Loud cheers.) He believed that this
nation was so far awake to its interests, and so far alive to

its dangers, that no administration which could not act upon
the principle that popery was to be kept in its proper place,
and protestant ascendancy to be maintained uncompromised,
or rather restored to its former integrity—(cheers),—he be-
lieved, he said, that no administration which did not act with
this in view—he did not say at once carrying all, but gradu-

ally restoring our institutions, taking from popery the poli-
tical power it had been entrusted with, and withdrawing the
assistance given to popery in our colonies abroad, and to May -
nooth at home, (hear), unless, he said, we had an adminis-
tration which would thus carry out the protestant principle,

for one had little hope that the conservatives would stand
long in power, and he doubted if they would speed, to any
great extent, our progress. (Hear, hear.) Oh, that we
could get one great statesman, to come to the knowledge of
this one single fact, that all sound legislation must be begun,
continued, and ended in connection with the word of God!
(Cheers.) If they would take their bible, and consult
it before they determined upon any measure, they would get
more assistance from one single page than they would from
the whole of their cabinet councils ! How delightful it
would be fora set of ministers, when they were about to de-
liberate upon any great question involving the interests of
this country, and through this country, to a certain extent,
the interests of the world, to kneel down and ask the
God of all wisdom and grace, without whom nothing is
strong, nothing is holy, to guide them ! (Applause.) They
would then have complied with the requirements of his Word,
of the word of God ; they would then be satisfied whether
what they were going to do was for the good of the people,
and if they found it did not accord with that Word, they would
abandon it altogether. (Cheers.) Was this thought to be
fanatical and foolish ? Then it was the fanaticism and folly,
—he spoke it with all reverence and all awe—of the great
Father of all, for did he not give to his people Israel a consti-
tution that was to be in its essential principle the pattern of
all succeeding constitutions ? (Hear, hear). In that consti-
tution was not God to be acknowledged upon all occasions,
and his will set before the people in a manner not to be mis-
taken ? Was not God placed supreme in all the laws of the
land ? (Hear, hear.) Should it be said, that was a theocracy,
and therefore it could have no parallel now, he answered that
every government and constitution should be as far as possi-
ble a theocracy. (Hear.) God could not be too distinctly
recognized by the nations, or too much regarded in the laws
of any country, too much feared in the tribunals of justice or
within the walls of the senate house; his word could not be
too much carried into the words and acts of all in authority
over us. ' (Loud cheers.) If it was by him that princes
ruled( and senators were taught wisdom, if it was by him
that our Queen was brought to the throne, and he was
pleased to keep the sceptre in her hands ; and if our country
sunk or rose in prosperity as we were faithful or faithless,
we owed much to God for his mercies, we owed much to the
Bible for our laws, and therefore let them ever be acknow-
ledged by our rulers. (Cheers.) Oh, there was not a more
godless and atheistical sentiment than that promulgated in
these our days, that religion had nothing to do with
politics. (Hear.) It was saying that God had nothing to do
with nations, and if he had nothing to do with nations, he
had nothing to do with individuals, and if he had nothing to
do with individuals, he had nothing to do with the world,
and if he had nothing to do with the world, we were poor
wretched outcasts, launched upon the cheerless, starless
shore of atheism, without God to govern us, or hope to con-
sole us, and we were at the best but as the beasts that perish
for ever. He knew no language too strong, and no indigna-
tion too severe to launch against that atheistical sentiment.
(Hear.) Disguise it as you might, let it come from the lips
of the religionist or the infidel, of Romanist or radical, it was
a sentiment that, when weighed in the balance of the sanc-
tuary, was nothing else than cheerless, hopeless, atheism,—
(hear, hear)—it was
getting rid of God from the world, from
nations, from individuals, from all mankind, and we were to
live—as he had said before—in a worthless and ruined world,
without a God who cared for us. The sentiment thus turned
out to be nothing less than hopeless irretrievable atheism.
With these views could we not but feel that an administra-
tion which did not set God before it, could not prosper, and
the nation which was so governed how could it prosper ?
He was well aware, however, that in reply to this it would
be said, this may be perfectly true and sound, but
you are not ministers of the state, you are not members of
the administration which is to guide, therefore you have been
thus declaiming.uselessly. He agreed with his reverend and
esteemed brother that the clergy of the national church were
the teachers and guides of the national mind in matters of
religion—that they were to teach and guide not only the cot-
tager in his own little circle, but the senator in his loftier
station—nay, the queen herself upon the throne was to be
taught by the ministers of the gospel. (Cheers.) If the
ministers of the Church of England were only faithful to the
poor and faithless to the rich, if they dared to tell the truth
the working man and dared not tell it to the peer and the
prince, where was the fear of God swallowing up their fear
of man ? They ought to know not the faces of men, therefore
he believed in God if his reverend brother (Mr. M'lsleile) or
himself were, through the grace of God, to preach before the
queen and her court, they would use no more smooth lan-
guage, or reserve in divinity, no more keeping back of the
truth, but teaching the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth, than they would were they preaching among a
multitude of unenlightened men. (Cheers.) He trusted,
while they would yield to no men in proper and deep respect
to the powers that be, that in their hearts there was a feeling
of loyalty towards their beloved Queen, and that they would
testify that loyalty by shewing they were first loyal to the
King of Kings, and then loyal to their Queen whom he had
placed over them. (Cheers.)—The reverend gentleman then
proceeded to describe Bishop Latimer's faithful preaching
before Henry VIII.—May, said he, his unworthy namesakes
have grace to tread in his steps ! May they in bearing a
martyr's name have somewhat of a martyr's spirit, that whe-
ther they be called upon to testify for protestant truth in the
face of a tumultuous mob, or in the face of the mightiest of
the earth, they may take no counsel with flesh and blood,
but simply ask—" Lord, what would thou have me to do,
speak, for thy servant hears ; what thou speaks I will speak,
that thy will may be done !" (Hear.)—Mr. Stowell then
considered the church of England as a protestant association,
and said that although some attempts had been made to de-
stroy the meaning of her 39 articles, they would be main.
tained and preserved in their integrity, in spite of all the
efforts of popery and infidelity. He next briefly glanced at
the vapourings of the popish priest Butler, and expressed the
gratification he felt at the manner in which Mr. Baylee had
had accepted his challenge. But the Doctor was evidently
afraid of his antagonist, and if he should go to Manchester he
would find parties there capable of dealing with him. He had
made these preliminary remarks, with th view of justifying
his friends and himself in taking part in what, strictly speak-
ing, might be called a political measure; yet it was rather a
politico-religious measure, so far as it was connected with
religion. The object was to put an end to the grant to the
College of Maynooth. Some might say—why attempt this
—why not attack some more gross and glaring evil ? There
were several reasons for that. In the first place, the grant
to the College of Maynooth, made by .Mr. Pitt, was
the first step in the sad career of concession, which had
brought us so low. It was the first compromise of Protes-
tant integrity, the first attack by the unhallowed hands of
Rome. Therefore, to stop the grant to Maynooth should be
the first step towards a restoration of our Protestant inte-
grity. (Hear.) In the next place, he believed that the de-
mand of Romanism to have the power of legislation over us,
was for the purpose of overturning the securities of Protes-
tantism, and therefore to destroy the character of our national