The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-09-13 00:00:00

CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

-.---,---

LECTURE BY THE REV. V. M. WHITE

ON Friday evening, the Rev. V. M. WIUTE, minister of
he Presbyterian Church, Islington, in this town, delivered
lecture in the Concert-hall, Lord Nelson-street, on Civil
nd Religious Liberty in Ireland, as manifested in the
ecent mission of 100 ministers from England and Scotland
o that country. The hall was densely crowded before the
Lour announced for the commencement of the lecture. On
ntering, the reverend lecturer was received with loud
heers, and several distinct rounds of applause. Having
btained silence, he proceeded to deliver a brief but appro-
riate prayer, which was listened to with the most marked
attention.' He then addressed the meeting

as follows :
My Christian Brethren-and Friends,—lt is my desire io
appear before you -as one anxious to give a lecture on a
mbiect which he deems of vital importance, and on which

ler this im-

can speak from practical ex
ession, I thought it better to dispense with some of ti
,ual forms attending such lectures, and to come before
111 direct and without ceremonial introduction. The
nrirlArcfneul 1, w.f.. 11 ict

GI, CI VIM • • ---
lot having a chairman to preside over the meeting, as is
!ustomary. He then proceeded—My subject is Civil and
Religious Liberty, as it has been displayed towards the
members of a mission lately undertaken to the West and
south of Ireland, of which mission I was one. (Cheers.)
[ lent an intimation of my intention to give this lecture
•I II 1 .1 I

to Dr. Cahill, who has not thought it worth while to
answer the. My intimation was to the effect that I meant
to expose the treatment we had received, and to show the
means employed to secure for us that treatment ; and I
intimated my willingness to hear and answer whatever he
might think it requisite to state in explanation or contra-
diction. That gentleman has not considered it desirable
to take any notice of my intimation; I have now, there-
fore, only to say, that if the gentleman referred to, or any
other Romish priest, will come forward after I have con-
cluded, I will promise him a full and a fair hearing; but I
cannot allow any other person except the gentlemen I
have alluded to, to make any statement, nor will I permit
any other to interrupt the proceedings.
Civil and religious liberty is the boast of Englishmen—
civil liberty, that is, the right of every man, without respect
to his creed, to claim and to receive the full protection of
the law, and the might and majesty of this country. In
such transactions his religion is never asked. In religious
matters you may adopt any principle you please, and no man
dares to ask you why. You may be a Protestant, a Roman
Catholic, or a Jew. You have the most ample liberty to

worship God according to the dictates of your conscience.
(Cheers.) And thus it is that, if you look over the land,
you will see the Protestant place of worship for what we
hold to be the pure service of Almighty God,—the Popish
chapel for what we believe to be the idolatrous sacrifice of
the mass—(hear, hear)—and the Jewish synagogue, where
our blessed Lord is called a vile impostor, all standing side
by side, and all are fully protected in the free exercise of
their religious rites. (Hear, hear.)
Every party makes it their cry. Is it a municipal or a
parliamentary election, no candidate has the least hope of
success unless he stands forth as the stern advocate of
civil and religious liberty. Is it a political or a religious
agitator who visits our land to laud France, to praise Aus-
tria, to extol Naples, to vindicate Tuscany, to hold forth
the government of the Papal States as all that is just, and
mild, and equitable, as becometh the administration of his
holiness the Pope, the vicar of the just and peaceful
Jesus ; and, at the same time, painful though it be to
speak evil of the ruler of one's country, or of the country
itself, compelled from a sense of duty to expose the des-
perate tyranny of England, he is obliged, in order to gain
a hearing, to hoist the broad flag of freedom. (Loud and
continued cheering.) What an unaccountable animal is
John gull, so intensely despotic, and yet so desperately in
love with civil and religious liberty. (Cheers.)
I am quite prepared to hear some one ask, but if these
things be so, what do you say about the Ecclesiastical
Titles Bill ? Did you not thereby refuse to the Church of
Rome the form of government she prefers ? Now I will
answer this by a parallel case. You have all heard of a
country called Turkey, partly in Europe and partly in
Asia, composed of some twenty-three or twenty-four mil-
lions of inhabitants. About ten or eleven millions of
these profess the religion of the Greek Church, and the
rest are Mahometans. You have also heard, no doubt, of
the Emperor of Russia—a bold, clever, ambitious, despotic
and determined man. He wishes to get possession of
Turkey, and thinks his best way is to do so through the
Greek Church, of which he is the acknowledged head, and
by virtue of which he claims jurisdiction over the Greek
Christians of Turkey. In these pretensions he is resisted
by England, France, Austria, Prussia, and indeed by all
Europe. Will any man, I ask, call it a violation of civil
and religious liberty, on the part of these countries, to tell
the haughty Czar to stay at home ; your co-religionists
shall be free, but not by your orders. (Hear, hear.) The
Czar and the Pope are alike ; both claim to be the heads
of their respective churches as the Vicars of Christ. They
are both about equally sincere, and both equally true.
(Laughter.) -Now we answer the Pope just as we did the
Emperor. Roman Catholics in this country shall have
full liberty to exercise their religious convictions as they
think fit ; but, by the blessing of God, no foreign prince
or potentate shall ever, under the phase of religious privi-
lege, be able to sow the seeds of treason and rebellion in
this Protestant kingdom, and to usurp the rightful prero-
gatives of our beloved and gracious Queen Victoria.
(Loud and protracted cheering.)
Some one again will say, but what about the Nunneries
Bill ? You intrude into the privacy of these sacred abodes,
and desecrate, by unholy feet, places consecrated as the
retreats of peculiar piety and virtue ! I answer, if such
be your interpretation of the magisterial inspection of
nunneries, such is our intention, and, by God's help, we
will never cease until such is the law of the land,—(loud
cheers)—that is to say, that there shall be no places in this
land of liberty, surrounded by high walls and strong bars;
where the property and liberties of British subjects are
even said to be interfered with, without power on the part
of our rulers to go in and say, you are in a land of liberty,
and you are at liberty to go or stay, as you think fit.
(Loud cheers.) As well might the brigand, who puts a
loaded pistol to my ear, and demands my money or my life,
complain of the violation of civil and religious liberty, be-
cause he is taken and cast into prison. We protect the
innocent; punish the guilty ; and give liberty to all.
(Cheers.) With respect to religious opinions, we must dis-
tinguish between three-things which many confound, but
which are altogether distinct from each other, namely,—
patronage, persecution, and toleration. We patronise what
is good ; we persecute none ; and we tolerate all. (Loud
cheers.) We have this evening to do not with mere theo-
ries, but with facts, which constitute, as I am sure you
will admit before I close, a gross violation of the law of
liberty ; and unless civil and religious liberty be a mere
farce to subserve personal and party purposes, then I
think we have a right to demand, and to receive, the sym-
pathy and protection of the British people. (Hear, hear.)
I assert, then; that the Protestants of the United King-
dom, and of Ireland in particular, have not civil and reli-
gious liberty. There is a class of men in this country,
considerable in point of numbers, scattered throughout
the land, possessed of absolutely unlimited power over the
minds and consciences of some millions of our population,
who deliberately violate the law themselves and stir up
others to do the same, to the injury of life and property.
That the governments of the country, Whig and Tory,
almost alike see it, and yet either have not the disposition
or the courage to vindicate the majesty of the law, they
cannot be moved to prosecute. When they do prosecute,
such is the reign of terror, that it is next to an impossi-
bility to get a conviction, and when a conviction is ob-
tained, then comes the strange thconsistency of a man
found guilty of a grave offence discharged upon his own
recognizances. Let there be no mystery. I refer to the
priests of the Church of Rome. (Cheers.) It shall be
my business on this evening to adduce facts to substan-
tiate these charges, and if so, it remains for you to say
what should be done. Will you not, as one man, rise and
inform our rulers, whoever they are, or whoever they are
to be, that we give to Roman Catholics the fullest liberty to
exercise and propagate their faith as they think fit. They
avail themselves of it, and it is not our wish to restrict it
by a hair's breadth, but we demand and we must receive
the same liberty and the same privileges. (Applause.)
Say it like men that are in earnest, say it like men that
are determined to have it, and no government will dare to
resist you. (Loud cheers.) Tell them that, vast as are
your political differences—and upon these I presume not
to enter—differences so great, that you do not see your way
to compromise them—(hear)—there is still one point of
the very last importance, one that lies at the root of all
our honour and glory as a nation, one in connexion with
which we stand pre-eminent among the nations of the
earth, and one on which we are happily agreed, that who-
ever are our judges, and whoever are our rulers, we ought
to have, and by the grace of God we must have, equal
laws and equal administration. (Applause.) Civil and
religious liberty to all who are British subjects to receive,
adopt, maintain, and propagate whatever religious princi-
ples they believe to be most for the glory of God, and
most for the good of mankind. (Loud and protracted
applause.)
After these general observations upon civil and religious
liberty, I come to state some preliminary facts in connec-
tion with our mission to Ireland. As all manner of ex-
cuses will be made, and have been made, to vindicate and
palliate the offences of the. Church of Rome against law
and order—is there are ever those to be found who con-
demn anything and everything, which takes the attitude
of opposition to it, who, therefore, look upon our recent
mission as a thing not to be desired, or indeed defended,
and who tell us that it is no wonder we met with the re-
ception we complain of, it was only what was to be ex-
pected, and what, all the circumstances of the case consi-
dered, the people were :i--,tified in offering—l shall state
some particulars which, but for such objectors, I should
have passed over. First, then, I notice the origin of the
mission. Every movement will take not a little of its
type and character from its originators and founders.
Immediately after the annual meeting of the Evangelic
Alliance in Dublin, last year, three or four gentlemen
made a tour of the south and west of Ireland. • Like all
tourists, they were delighted with the country
o beau-
tiful, so fertile, and so varied in its resources, and with a
population so noble and generous, though so misagoer-
able and poverty-stricken. As the Romans, long ,
said of British children, when exposed for sale as
slaves in the market at Rome, " Not English, but
angels, if only they were Christians," so did these
worthy men exclaim, " What might not Ireland become if
her population only understood the saving and
y,
comforting
doctrines of Christ crucified ?" (Applause.) Accordingl
a plan was adopted, by which it was hoped
hopsedhauthrastferthisto
tehnids
might in some measure be gained.
plan after. a little; in the mean time we have only to do
with the originators, who and what they were. They
were not Tory bigots, nor Orange parsons, nor proselytizing
high churchmen, who had become odious to the people by
reason of the exactions of the Irish Church. The one was
an English Baptist, the other a Scotch Dissenter ; they
were both Whigs in politics, unconnected with any
established church, and opposed, both in principle and
practice, to all such institutions. There was nothing,
therefore, in the originators of the mission to justify the
reception given us. (Hear, hear.) Let us next consider
the ministers sent upon it. Had they been all like myself,
persons accustomed both to speak and write against
Popery, and in so doing occasionally to give expression
to sharp things, because I believed them, and sometimes have
,
perhaps severely, because I felt so, then there might
been some palliation for the conduct of the mob ; but
such was not the case. At least nine-tenths were men who,
tlieugll Wed to Preach the pure Gospel with power, with