The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-09-29 00:00:00

only to discern a Creator's pow(
every blade of

flutters in the brec

on which we tr(
, in every flower 1

around our path, as well

tainments which involve the triumph of
and reflection. (Much enthusiasm wa
Such, sir, is the institution which we pr0p05e,...‘.....
who wishes well to his country and to his own offspring, t
he rich or be he poor, will hasten to render it support.
projectors enter upon the work with confidence, f
know well that there is in Liverpool a spirit of lo-
ment to our protestant institutions which•
be fanned into a flame. (There is.) '
hears me, I say, permit not the standard of protestantism
be lowered to please the latitudin.arian spirit of the age. R
member, my respected operative friends, that on the cont
nuance of protestantism in England, the evangelisation a
well as the civilisation of the world mainly depend. Com
merce, manufactures, and science follow in her train, and sh
is favourable to .intellectual cultivation as well as to cif
liberty. (Loud cheers.) Popery once gained a footing in P
tagonia, and succeeded in causing many of the natives to e
brace her system, but they did not carry wni, - -
of C I when they

here elicite

1:0 every man MI

anc. _ At the country the poor natives
aside their mummery and again relapsed into idolatry. '
northern part of the western hemisphere, on the contu
was colonized by protestant England and protestant I
land, and what has been the result'
found an outlet for her manufacture-
Sr

Why England

scriptures have had free course there, andintg;qi
we see the features of a tree and mighty nation.
Two antagonist systems are now strue.:.lim, fnr rho

in Britain—the Church of
The grand struggle lies between the two
sent repudiate the doctrines of the latter.

;land and the Church of Ron

At present d

wittingly assists her in her political ag
dissent cannot florish either with the

sed• piety a

efficiency- of the national establishment or with the supra,
of the Church of Rome. But, sir, there is no room for k
An abundance of that spirit which animated our Ridleys a.
our Latitners yet remains; and whatever the upper class,
may do, I will answer for that class to which I have the har
piness to belong, and there are now present hundreds of ou
operative friends who are ready to answer for themselves-
(much applause)—that the royal standard of Prote
tantism shall be nailed I and either fly --•
rionsly there, or we w
is better to die in a coi

with our colours Ilyiug, for

table expediency ; better to die a freeman, who
the truth makes free, than to live in a state of mental deter
dation, or hound in the detestable shackles of any spiritu
despot. Sir,' the ariththetician is not yet born who is ab
to comikte the inestimable value of that chastened religioi
liberty, and of that subordinate political liberty, which is am
less the undOubted privilege than it is the inalienable birtl
right of the humblest subject of the British Crown. In ti
preservation of these blessings I hope we shall be joined b
every right-minded man in the empire, and my fervent praye
is, that •

United and happy, at loyalty's shrine,
The rose and the thistle may flourish and twine
Round a sprig Of shillelah and shamrock so green.
Mr. Holme concluded by proposing the following resolution
" That it is the opinion of this meeting the encroachment
now making by the •Romish Church in Great Britain, an
the apathy with which those encroachments are regarded h
professing Protestants, call aloud for the active exertions c

all those who desire the continuance of pure religion at
civil liberty in our land."—Mr. Hohne sat down amid
thunders of applause.
_ _

Mr. ANDREW CLARICE, an operative
much cheering to second the resolution.
friends of the nronosed branch of the (lr

appeared amid
lie stated that ti

tive Association had waited till the rev. chairman came hom,
to solicit him to become their patron. He regretted to ob
serve so few names to the requisition to that effect in the
STANDARD a short time since ; but he would assure thi
meeting that in place of fourteen, he believed the names o
thousands could now be obtained. (Cheers.) He believe(
that since the time of William 111 so great and glorious
struggle had not been made for protestantism ; and he be
lievel the association they were uow forming would make
clear road through the Protector Society. (Loud cheer
I
'ss H -lad toe C

4e was g_ :mar ,aptain Crichton deliver his sentiments
so well, but be wished also to hear a ship-owner or 'pastel
ship-wright address the meeting. He saw near him the Bri.
tish flag ; and hoped they would be able to hoist it more
triumphantly than ever on the '29th of May. He had him-
self something to do with procuring the royal standard then
over their heads. The magistrates had thought proper to
investigate that flag before they exhibited it, though strange
to say they had suffered the papists to carry their flags un-

scrutinised. But he hoped the day was jfast approaching
when they would be enabled to carry what flags they thought
proper without scrutiny. (Loud cheers.)

- The motion was then put and unanimously carried.
Mr. WHATHAM rose amidst loud cheers to move the next
• resolution, which he did in a most eloquent speech, to which
we regret our inability to do justice. He paid a well earned
tribute of praise to the moral courage of the distinguished
chairman on behalf of Protestantism, and he subsequently
demonstrated that the present meeting was one really
and truly a shipwrights' meeting constituted for the purpose
of defending protestantism, without any reference to the
approaching municipal election. He reminded the meeting
that had it not been for the Shipwrights' Associaion,
Liverpool, probably, would not now have been represented
by two conservatives—and it was, therefore, a public duty
to aid their exertions in defence of protestantism. He
hoped, indeed, that they would assist the conservative band
in winning many a glorious triumph. Nevertheless, the
Shipwrights' Protestant Association was not a political body.
They were determined to uphold their religious faith ; and
they took the best means to doh, for their committee, up-
ward's of forty in number, every Sunday distributed religious
tracts among our most degraded and ignorant fellow towns-
men. The speaker next alluded to O'Connell's late speech
in the Queen's Theatre, particularly to a few of the hack-
neyed blackguardisms in it.. O'Connell said he did not care
about the Rev. T. D. Gregg, for he was not a responsible
animal, but it was the Rev. Mr. M'Neile who was daiog all
the mischief. And then, as if he thought he had -given too
much importance to Mr. M`Neile, hQsaid that man,must be
inspired by the. very' devirhirnself. He (Mr. \Vhathatn)
fancied he would have been hearer to the truth if he had said
that he himself (O'Connell) had been under the visitation of
the satanic inspiration, for it was exhibited in his very coun-
tenance. After speaking in terms of praise of the principles
of the shipwrights, coopers, ropers, and sailmakers; Mr.
Whathana concluded by expressing a lope that they would all
come forward manfully to protect the British constitution,
and so enable it to sail victoriously over the waves of faction
and prejudice. (Loud cheers.)
Mr. Joust LONGWORTH moved the next resolution. He
saw the necessity of the proposed society, to counteract a ne-
farious one established in the neighbourhood of the Mass-
house of St. Patrick. The flag of their society, (the Royal
Standard), -over their heads was not disloyal. The motto
was--" For God, our Queen, and our country." Had it
been a Popish flag; it would have commenced with—" For
the Pope, the Queen, and the country." If the Queen of
England. were in danger, she would find much more assist-
ance and succour from the Protestant shipwrights of Liver-
pool, than from the Papists ; and, if she sought refuge in Li-
verpool, would return back to her palace and cry out " No
popery" herself. (Cheers.)
The resolution was then carried unanimously.
The Rev. CHAIRMAN, after a brief eulogium upon his cha-
racter, introduCed the curate to his predecessor as pastor of
St. Jude's Church, the Rev. Mr. Dalton., •
The Rev. HENRY HUGH lIIGGINS, who said he was fully
conscious that his only claim on the time and attention of
that large and influential meeting-, arose from their kind in-
dulgence. He considered it a great privilege to take
a part in the establishment of a Protestant Association
in a meeting of so many of his fellow-countrymen, as-
sembled to defend the best interests of their church.
(Cheers.) He had lately come from a country ,vell known to
them (Ireland,) where he had seen somewhat of the workings
of the Popish system. He had discovertid that it was one
thing to be well aware, in the abstract, of the fallacy of the
Papal system, and another to be convinced of its evil practi-
cal workings. He held any man of sound understanding,
with his bible in his hand, and, with God's blessing, might
fully demonstrate to his own satisfaction the fallacy of the
Papal system : but it was another thing to know thedistresse

_
and the fatal consequences which attended upon the spread
of that system. We might have heard or read of a famine,
but unless we saw the haggard countenances and wasted forms
--unless we heard the last dying gasp of those perishing from
it—we had little conception of the distress occasioned by a
famine. The spread of the Papal superstition was a famine
worse than that of bread. It was a famine of the word of
God ; and some of the effects of that famine he had seen where
he had lately been travelling._ The rev. gentleman Went fly.

~
to describe the state of knowledge amongst the lower el,

of people i❑ Ireland. He sheaved that there was a lamenta-
ble destitution of sound religious instruction amongst them ;
and that, although there might be some acquaintance with
'arithmetic, there was little knowledge of the diverging lines