The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-11-25 00:00:00

CONTEMPORARY PRESS.

(PROM THE TIMES.)
With a mixture of pain and surprise we this day pre-
sent a series of letters, followed by an official document,
for none of which, we imagine, have the Protestants of
these islands been yet prepared, notwithstanding the ac
cumulated proofs which have been offered to them, of
what the Established Church of the United Kingdom
ought to dread, from the treachery or fatuity of her sworn
protectors.

The case is this :—The Rev. Mr. Nolan, who had
•
jured the Church of Rome, and transferred his ministe •
rial services to that reformed church with whose pure te-
nets his own enlightened faith coincided, was appointed
by the Lord Primate, curate of the parish of Athboy, in
the county of Meath, a rectory which appears, from the
circumstances of the short narrative transmitted to us, to
be annexed to the archiepiscopal see of Aimagh, the
Rev. Robert Noble, writer of the letter No. 3 in the cor-
respondence, being vicar of the same parish. Mr. No-
lan was recognised as curate by the Lord Bishop of
Meath, and authorised by that prelate to assert the rights
of iris curacy, and to execute its duties. It appears that
Mr. Nolan, having come on one occasion, above a month
ago, into the diocese of Dublin, preached in the church
of Lucan, a few miles from Dublin, a sermon, which our
correspondent describes from report to have been "calm,
dispassionate, and argumentative," although of a contro-
versial nature—that is, vindicating the truths of the Pro-
testant religion against the errors and the denunciations
of that false church whose ministers are perpetually heap-
ing the most calumnious charges against protestantism,
and inflaming at once the superstitious prejudices and
the fiery passions of the Popish multitude against the
lawful rights, the character, and persons of the established
clergy. We have yet to learn that there was anything
criminal in this—anything beyond the fulfilment of a
sacred duty, on the part of Mr. Nolan. However, we
find from letter No. 1, addressed by the domestic chap-
lain of the Archbishop to Archdeacoa Magee, rector of
St. John's, Dublin, that his Grace, the whig-radical
Archbishop, Dr. Whately, was resolved to prohibit Mr.
Nolan from preaching or performing any clerical office
whatever within the diocese over which the said Dr.
Whately presided. The rev. gentleman, Mr. Nolan,
having come to Dublin, and received the full permission
and authority of Archdeacon Magee to preach from his
pulpit in St. John's Church, the chaplain wrote to an-
nounce to the Archdeacon the embargo laid upon the
spiritual functions of the rev. proselyte, be order of the
Most Rev. Prelate. We do think that Dr. Whately
ought to explain to the Protestant world, in both coun-
tries, his reason for this peremptory and ungracious—not
to say suspicious—act. Does the Protestant Archbishop
mean to discountenance expositions from the pulpit of
the points disputed between the Church of England and
that of Rome ? Does he declare that there shall be no
defence or justification from any Protestant pulpit within
the archiepiscopal diocese of Dublin—no defence, we
say, of the doctrines of the reformed church in contra-
distinction from those of the Romish ? Or is it his wish
that no lay Protestant shall receive such instruction from
his spiritual pastor as may enable him to give " a reason
for the faith that is in him ?" Or, finally, is it the fixed
purpose of this mathematical, economical, political, whig
archbishop to co-operate with the Popish heirarchy in
Ireland by frowning down and discountenancing every
Roman Catholic convert whose conscience might inspire
him with a disgust to popery and with a reverence for
the Protestant faith, and might dispose him to read his
recantation. Those rev. and virtuous clergymen, Mr.
0. Croly and Mr,.-Crotty, have inflicted such deep wounds
on the whole machinery of Irish Romanism, by their ear-
nest and edifying exposvires of the gross, unchristian
wickedness, and corruption, which have eaten into the
vitals of that earth born and deceitful system, that it al-
most seems as if the whig-radical archbishop dreaded the
fatal effects which popery might experience from a repe-
tition by fresh proselytes of the same course of instruction
to mankind, and has therefore striven to shut their mouths,
and suppress the reasoning by which, while they vindi-
cate their own flight from the regions of darkness, they
beseech their yet unliberated brethren to partake with
them the blessings of conversion. For it is not Protes-
tants only, but pious Roman Catholics, eager for that
knowledge which their own ministers dare not dispense
to them, wino throng to hear the word of truth from the
lips of these converted preachers, labouring once under
the like errors with themselves, and qualified therefore
fully to develope and elucidate every stage of those strug-
gles of the inward man which have ended in their own
recovery to the fold of the Redeemer.
It was such a congregation, so crowded and so mixed,
of which our Irish correspondent paints the astonishment
when Archdeacon Magee announced to them, after the
communion service, on Sunday last, that the hand of power
had silenced the teacher whom they had flocked to hear.
What excuse the most rev. potentate of Dublin may
present to the Protestant world of both islands for an act
so arbitrary, and to religious minds, under all the circum-
stances of these eventful days, so revolting, it is not for us
to guess at. Sure we are that the papists will require no
apology—sure we are that if Drs. M'llale and Murray
were at the elbow of our liberal metropolitan, they would
smother him with applauses, absolutions, and indulgen-
cies, for this display of " wholesome rigour" towards one
who is already no doubt anathematized from every popish
altar in the land, for being at once a heretic and an apos-
tate. It would nothing surprise us if Dr. Whately had
thus earned for himself an honorary enrolment among
the members of the " rebellion-rent" association in Dub-
lin, prefaced by a cut-and-dry panegyric from the depUt
of Mr. Daniel O'Connell. Decent men of all parties
condemn and reprobate the act.

" Sir,—l am just come from St. John's church, within about
40 yards of the Castle gate, when the most crowded congrega-
tion I ever witnessed was collected together to hear the Rev.
Mr. Nolan, formerly a Roman Catholic priest, but now a Pro-
testant clergyman, the curate of Athboy, in the county of Meath,
and a curate to his Grace the Lord Primate. At the conclusion
of the communion service Archdeacon Magee, the rector of St.
John's, informed the astonished congregation that he was com-
pelled to inhibit Mr. Nolan from preaching that day in his
pulpit by the peremptory interdict of his Grace the Archbishop
of Dublin, who had prohibited Mr. Nolan from preaching in
any other part of his diocese. You must know that Mr. Nolan
preached a controversial sermon upon the errors of the Church
of Rome, about a month ago, at Linen, a village within about
seven miles of Dublin, and within the diocese of the Archbishop.
I did not hear.him, but from what I have heard of that sermon,
I should judge him calm, dispassionate, and argumentative. In
a discourse of considerable length he said nothing to offend the
worst prejudices of the many Roman Catholics who thronged
to hear him; he cited Scripture in refutation of every error he
impugned, and in support of every truth he enforced. The
present Archdeacon is the son of the late Archbishop of Dub-
lin—the pillar of the church in his day, and as the author of the
Atonement has contributed, with some few other names, to take
from our native college the imputation of the silent sister. I
send you the copy of the correspondence 1,2, 3, and also the
original inhibit under the sign manual and seal of the Arch-
bishop of Dublin. As nobody I have vet seen of all parties,
and I have seen four or five, who do not Condesrin this measure,
even though it be Sunday, in order that you may have the same
by Tuesday's mail. 6i B"