The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-05-10 00:00:00

MAY 10, 1853.

CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE REV.
DR. WNEILE AND MR. JOHN MAC-
DONALD.

67, Combermere-street, Toxtetb• park,
Liverpool, 4th May, 1853.

TO THE REVEREND HUGH M'NEILE, D.D.

REVEREND SlR,—Your extraordinary zeal in religious con-
troversy renders any apology unnecessary for troubling you
with this letter.
A number of Catholic laymen, duly appreciating your desire
of enlightening their benighted intellects, have unanimously
resolved on presenting you with the long-desiderated oppor-
tunity. Arrangements have been made for " two great
meetings" to be held in the "Tabernacle," Bispham street, at
each of which meetings you are hereby most respectfully in-
vited to preside. A chair will be expressly provided for you.
and every precaution adopted to show due deference to your
calling and position. Half of the platform will be allotted to
the use of as many of your godly brethren as may choose to
accompany you, and a fair proportion of time allowed them for
speaking. _ _

At the first meeting, which will be held on the evening of
Tuesday, May 10, at half-past seven, you will be called upon
to prove " Who sent you to preach the gospel ? and your
authority for styling yourself a Catholic Priest."
At the second meeting, which will be held on the Tuesday
following, at the same hour, you will be required to disprove
(or defend) certain " abuses, errors, and corruptions of the
Church of England."

Your opponents will be laymen, the writer amongst the
number ; but he feels assured you will not object to discuss
with him on that account, but show yourself a practical be-
liever of the gospel precept, " ready always to give an answer
to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in
you." He is convinced " that a man professing to be a teacher
of the religion of Christ, will not avow himself so utterly
destitute of the mind of Christ as to be unconcerned about
any one." He believes " that a professed Priest of the
Catholic Church will not be so dead to the high obligations
of his boasted mission as to tell a man whom he con-
siders an idolater' that he is not of such importance as
to deserve his attention." " Affected dignity has been
long the convenient plea of impotence, but neither its
loftiness nor its trappings can any longer conceal its weak-
ness." He confidently trusts that you will not treat his com-
munication with "affected contempt," but answer him in the
true spirit of "brotherly kindness and sincere concern,"
thereby proving that your zeal is "according to knowledge,"
and not the false fire of an " interested hypocrisy."
The "servant of the Lord is gentle unto all men; in meek-
ness instructing those that oppose themselves," and always
" ready to preach the Word instant in season and out of
season." " God is no respecter of persons," and it would ill
become his professed minister to give a contrary example. No
man should be turned aside from the performance of an
obvious duty by the sinful promptings of pride, or the weak
vanity of respecting merely conventional distinctions. "All
men are equal in the sight of God."
Hoping that you will prove yourself on this occasion the true
disciple of Him "who will have all men to be saved, and come
to a knowledge of the truth," I am, Rev. Sir, your obedient
servant, JOHN MACDONALD.

TO MR. JOHN MACDONALD,

London, 7th May, 1853.

SlR,—Your letter of the 4th instant has been sent after me
to London. lam pressed by many engagements ; still, I can-
not hesitate to send you an immediate reply.
You inform me that arrangements have been made for two
great meetings, at which a chair shall be expressly provided
for me, and every precaution adopted to show due deference to
my calling and position.

You further inform me that you and your friends, the Ca-
tholic laymen who have made arrangements for these meetings,
are kind and impartial enough to have fixed upon the precise
subjects which lam to discuss. At the first meeting I am to
prove "who sent me to preach the Gospel, and my authority
as a Catholic Priest ;" and at the second meeting I am " to dis-
prove, or defend certain abuses, errors, and corruptions of the
Church of England."

You then proceed to urge upon me the duty of not treating
your letter with disrespect, or yourself with unconcern ; and
this you do by Christian arguments taken from my letters to
Mr. Power : arguments which, though they have hitherto failed
to produce any salutary impression upon one of your own
Priests, you think, and justly think, arc such as cannot fail to
take effect upon me.

I recognise their cogency ; and, although I have not the ad-
vantage of knowing who or what you are, I give immediate
attention to your communication.

In the first place, then, I rejoice to learn on such unques-
tionable authority as I am bound to suppose your letter to be,
that " a number of Catholic laymen duly appreciate my desire
to enlighten their benighted intellects." This is a step in the
right direction. But now, as to the best mode of aiming at the
attainment of this highly desirable result, permit me to invite
you to consider how very superior PUBLISHED LETTERS are to
speeches delivered at large meetings.
Such letters possess these advantages. They contain all the
reasoning, all the facts and dates, all that is calculated to en-
lighten, without any of the noise, or confusion, or misunder-
standing, or misrepresentation, incident unhappily to con-
troversial meetings.
This is something ; but, in addition to this, such letters
attain at once, and with correctness,that wide-spread publicity
among thousands in diverse places, which speeches cannot
attain till published, and seldom attain with such strict accu-
racy of reporting as our sacred subject demands.
Moreover, letters, calmly and deliberately composed, secure
impartial fair play to sound reasoning and convincing facts
and arguments, by depriving a ready and eloquent speaker of
the unfair advantage he would have at a meeting, over an oppo-
nent equally well informed. but not equally practised or ready
in turning his information to extemporaneous account.
I might add other reasons, but these are sufficient to express
the grounds of my preference for publications rather than
meetings, for such purposes as you say you have in view. There
are indeed objects for which meetings are preferable,—for which
meetings are indispensable; but for purposes of serious reli-
gious controversy, where the object is to enlighten, and the
risk is to irritate, I hope you will not consider it disrespectftil
when I say that I prefer publications to meetings.
It was to this peaceful mode of discussion that I invited
your Priest. Instead of getting up noisy, and perhaps angry,
meetings, to attempt to screen his refusal, you should go to him
and urge upon him the discharge of his high duty as a watch-
man among you. If he can't perform that duty, you should
gravely consider whether he is any longer entitled to your con-
fidence.

Now, with regard to the first thesis which you have assigned
to me,—viz., "My authority as a Priest of_ the Catholic
Church,"--It is simply this :
I was ordained in due form by a Bishop, who was consecrated
in unbroken succession from the inspired Apostles of our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is true that in the course
of the succession some of the Bishops who formed links'in the
chain were not, in their opinions or practices, orthodox
Catholics. They had, in a greater or less degree, fallen into
those errors which the Church of Rome, at the dictation of
Pope Pius IV., and in defiance of the decrees of (ecumenical
councils, arranged into a Creed, and imposed upon her
Clergy for subscription in the year 1564.
But though in error as individuals, they were in unbroken
succession as Bishops.

The errors I refer to, both in doctrine and practice, were
exposed and reformed in England previous to the imposition
of the NEW CREED of the Church of Rome. In Rome the
channels were so obstructed by the traditions of men, that the
waters of life could not flow freely through them. In England
the waters were purified from human corruptions, without any
break or interruption in the channels.

From this source, clear in its spring from the Apostolic
fountain, muddy in its meanderings through mediaeval corrup-
tions, cleansed and purified by reforming fidelity, I have re-
ceived, by the laying on of hands and by prayer, my authority,
as a Priest of the Catholic Church, to preach the glad tidings of
free salvation by Jesus Christ, without money and without
merit in man, and to administer the ()ply sacraments which
Christ ordained in His Church,—viz., Baptism, and Lord's
Supper.
If you deny this authority, please to chew where the succes-
sion failed : at what link the chain was broken. Perhaps you
are aware that some persons, who still assert that there was a
break in the chain in England, acknowledge that there was no
break in Ireland. I was ordained by an Irish Bishop.
With regard to the second thesis which you have prepared
for me,—viz., "To disprove, or defend certain abuses, errors,
and corruptions in the Church of England." As you do not
specify what these are, I cannot enter into particulars. But
this I say. If there be errors, or abuses, or corruptions, in
the Church of England, I protest against them as sincerely
as you can do. I am not at all concerned to defend them.
There is no sinking weight of boasted infallibility hanging
around our necks. Into the human administration of even
a divine thing, errors will find their way: and against any
errors, of any kind, which may have thus found a place among
us in the Church of England, I protest. I have no desire to de-
fend them. I wish to see them as effectually reformed as the
grosser abuses which prevailed three hundred years ago were
reformed.

And if you ask me how I can belong: to a Church in which
there are any abuses, my answer is—because I belong, as yet,
to a fallen world, wherein nothing is perfect. Any change of
Church which 1 could make in this world would be a change
for the worse. My only escape from abuses altogether is to go
to heaven, where I may yet have the happiness to meet you,
and Priest Power also, if you and he will truly repent of all
your sins, steadfastly purpose to live a new life, have a lively
faith in God's mercy through Christ. with a thankful remem-
brance of His Death, and be in charity with all men.

I am, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
HUGH AVNEILE.

P.S.--As I must decline private correspondence on this sub-
ject, I send your letter and a copy of this reply to the news-
paper. I shall desire that a copy of the paper may be sent to
you on Tuesday morning, and I hope you will read this letter
to your assembled friends.

THE DUBLIN 'EXHIBITION.—It will be seen
.., h y an
bA tracinheedr
announcement in our advertisement columns that season
tickets, both for ladies and gentlemen, may be obtained
in Liverpool. Mr. Grantham and Mr. T. C.
officiate as localsecretaries forthe town and neighbourhood.
SALE OF PICTURES.—An extensive and valuable collec-
tion of paintings is about to be sold by Mr. Branch, at
his rooms, Hanover-street. The collection includes some
first-class productions by Teniers, Rembrandt, Sir J.
Reynolds, Gainsborough, Nasmyth, Van Haack, Etty,
and other ancient and modern masters.