The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-11-12 00:00:00

fItOT,E6TANT Ai`ioC/4110

The attoktion of the public is now directed in a peculiar
And special manner to the proceedings pc the Prqtestant As-
sociations throughout the country. Not only are these in-
stitutions now assailed by our radical contemporaries, to
whose attacks they have been always subject, but they have
also to contend against the fierce opposition of a small por-
tion of the conservative press, which has recently manifested
a great leaning towards the views of that party which has
shown an equal inclination to forward the dogmas of popery
and the interests of papists in preference to the cause of
sound Scriptural protestantism, and of which the Rev. R.
W. Sibthorp was, until his very recent admission into the
Church of Rome, a devoted member.' The indiscreet re.
marks of any fervent admirer of the principles of the refor-
mation ar2 made the ground-work of a series of the most
unjust allegations against the utility and even necessity of
such admirable institutions as the Protestant Association, as
if the society itself could, by any.sort of logic, be chargeable
with all that any of the multitude of gentlemen, lay or cleri-
cal, who are called at any time to speak in its behalf, may
choose to advance. Will the London Times, or any of his
compeers, undertake to defend every sentiment or every
speech made use of at every conservative meeting or every
conservative dinner. Are there not gentlemen who some-
times, though we admit but rarely, give utterance on such
occasions to sentiments in the heat of debate or the warmth
of enthusiasm, the propriety of which is often questioned,
but has never yet been attempted, as far as we are aware, to
be justified. We quite agree with an enlightened writer in
the Metropolitan press, that " if any cause on earth were to
be judged by such a standard it would fall; and, in truth,
few things are more easy than to get up a plausible and
effective attack when you have the extended line presented
by the long speeches of a variety of speakers on which to
operate. Mistakes in popular meetings will occasionally be
made, and errors in taste and sound judgment will also be
sometimes manifested; but no one who is not an enemy to
the cause they are intended to support, will argue from these
weaknesses, incidental to all public meetings, against the
principles which the meeting has assembled to vindicate and
extend."

We deprecate as strongly as any man the use of the intem-
perate language which we are free to admit is sometimes in-
dulged in by some few of the speakers, at our protestant
meeting, whose zeal beyond question outruns their discre-
tion ; but are we then bound to admit with equal readiness
that the association is therefore chargeable " with making
" many more papists than protestants, and with fanning the
" flame of that truculent politicalpopery which is so grievous
" a curse to Ireland." We apprehend a more inconclusive
argument was never made use of.

But we must put our readers in possession of one or two
very instructive facts on this subject. In the rabid attacks
on the protestant association which have once or twice dis-
graced the columns of the Times, (and which we feel per-
suaded would never have appeared if the master spirit which,
until lately, controlled the articles in that journal, still pre-
sided over its interests,) the Rev. J. M'Ghee and others are
represented as illustrating the views of the writer. Mr.
M'Ghee is not a man to sit tamely by and hear the cause he
espouses vilified and misrepresented without some stirring
and unanswerable remonstrance. Such a course we find he
has adopted in reply to the editor of the Times, in a letter
dated September 24th, 1841, and which has been refused ad-
mission into that journal. After quoting an extract from
the Times of last August, (which Mr. M'Ghee was unable to
answer earlier, owing to his absence on the Continent,) the
Rev. Gentleman says—" I feel that it is of some importance
to the protestants of England to know on what ground you
have so far shifted your policy as to stand forth to attack
men who, if they were even under an error, still honestly en-
deavour to defend the protestant cause ; and why you, who
very lately eulogised their labours and extolled themselves,
consider it now expedient, either yourself, or by authorised
writers in your paper, to turn round on these men as their
assailant, and to appear against them and their clause as the
apologist, if not the defender and patron of Popery ?
" I can readily prove the fact that you do so, by referring
to your columns in my own case. I have been prevented by
illness this year from attending any meetings of the protest-
ant association. The last meeting but one I attended in
London was one convened at my own particular request, and
that was a meeting of the most grave and learned men whose
presence I could presume to solicit. The meeting consisted
of between three and four hundred individuals. There were
two bishops, many other dignitaries of our church, and doc-
tors, masters, and some graduates of masters' standing, of
the Universities of, England and Ireland ; and I trust the
pnblic will consider the importance of the subject as a suffi-
cient apology for the apparent egotism of quoting from the
Times of April 11,1840, your own account of that meeting :
The rev. gentleman then gives the passage to which he
alludes, the pith of which is given in his subsequent remarks,
and then goes on as follows :

Now, sir, such was the language in which you described
my principles and conduct up to April 10, 1840. I have only
to add to this, that the statement laid before that learned as-
sembly was as plain and simple as it was possible for me to
make—that no reflections of mine were obtruded on them,
except such as were barely necessary to explain the nature of
the documents submitted to them, or to connect the extracts
taken from those documents, and I took the liberty of re-
questing that if any document or statement appeared incon-
clusive or defective, that any gentleman present would,
without any scruples or ceremony, interrupt me, and call
for any explanation which he might require to elucidate the
case. That statement itself, and all the speeches made by
my friend Dr. O'Sullivan and myself till the close of 1837,
the books that I had published, and the original and authen-
ticated documents of the Papacy to prove them, were lodged
in the Universities, and are there open to the inspection of all
the wise and learned men in the empire.
Whether, sir, I deserve your eulogium of April, 1840,
or your contemptuous reproach of August, 1841, is not the
question here ; but the question which the Protestant Asso-
ciations of England and all the Protestant public have a
right to ask is this—On what principle you ground such a.
totally opposite treatment of me, and of the subject at these
two different periods? I know, sir, fully my own insignifi-
cance as well as yon ; but the great cause which I have en-
deavoured, however feebly to advocate, is bound up with the
religion, the constitution, and all the blessings of civil and
religious liberty in this empire; and this is the point in
question. _ _

My labours up to April, 1840, were " labours in the
cause of Christianity." In 1841, they are calculated "to
produce an unfavourable impression of the moral character
of Protestantism I" At that period the public were " much
indebted to me for my exposure of the blasphemies of Ro-
nianism." But now, these and similar exertions are "likely
to make many more Papists than Protestants," and
" chargeable with fanning the flame of that truculent
Popery which is so grievous a curse in Ireland."

1 produced on your testimony in 1810 " a vast number of
documents, printed and published by the recognised printer
and publisher of the Popish bishops and priesthood, and
read from them extracts which at once justified the severity
of the castigation I had so frequently and so ably bestowed
upon the enemies and interdictors of the Bible." But now
I am specified as one of those orators whose "violent fanati-
cism and vituperative fury are in no degree calculated to ad-
vance the objects which they profess to have at heart, and
are altogether deficient in that sober, calm, and reverent
zeal which ought to characterize the advocates of truth."
Lip to April, 1840, " All the points to which I referred, I
had already treated with great skill on former occasions."
Now, my manner is so " strikingly contrasted" with that of
Dr. Wiseman, that " the best method" the writer in the
Times can suggest for converting a candid, reverent, reli-
giously and charitably disposed, but not very well-informed
person, to Romanism, would be, to a course of attendance
on meetings conducted by such fellows as Mr. Stowell and
me, and then throw him into the company of the soft-spoken,
subtle-minded, learned, and unpolitical Jesuit, Dr. Wise-
man." Finally, according to the learned writer, Dr. Mur-
ray, in 1840, was styled the " high priest of the modern
Babglonish mythology," and Popery was the worst of all
degrading superstitions." But in 1841, if men dare to en-
large on and detail the very principle which the writer him-
self laid down : if they dare to compare this " worst of all
degrading superstitions" with that of Mahomet, Paganism,
and Juggernaut; if they dare to call this "modern Baby-
lonish mythology" " the religion of the devil ;" then such
words are " foolish, intemperate, and profane ; they excite
nothing but disgust in the minds of practical and moderate
men, and their inevitable effect is to recoil upon those who
use them."

Now, Sir, I do not either quote your panygeric or your
censure as a matter which to me is worthy of a thought ; but
as the British public must feel an interest in the principles
on which a journal so influential as the Times is to be con-
ducted, I think they have a right to demand on what ground
its editor or its accredited contributors can alternately blow
hot or cold on the vital question of the protestant religion.
Facts have not changed since the year 1840 ; I have not
changed my opinions, my conduct, nor even my " manner;"
documents and principles have not changed ; Popery has not
changed ; the Protestant Association has not changed ; truth
and falsehood have not changed ; it is for you, Sir, to inform
the empire what change has come over " the spirit of the
Times."

But, Sir, all this is of little importance. Mr. Stowell's
character or mine, or that of the Protestant Association, or
even the character or consistency of the Times, are all utterly
insignificant compared with the great question which you
have now ventured to bring into discussion. I cannot weary
the public with too long a letter ; but if you are not afraid to
stand on the ground you have ventured to occupy, I shall
try the powers of the ed:tor of the Times, and of his friend
Dr. Wiseman, in one more letter.—Meantime, Sir, I have
the honour to be, your obedient servant, •
Dublin, Sept. 24, 1841. R. J. M'GREE.