The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-07-20 00:00:00

PROTESTANT CHURCH AT LYONS.

On Monday last, a select but highly interesting meeting—
ADAM HODGSON, Esq. in the chair—was held at the Chari-
table Institution House, Slater-street, to receive from the
Rev. Charles Augustus Cordes, pastor of " L'Eglise Evan-
gelique" at Lyons, the report of the state of religion in that
great commercial town.
The CHAIRMAN introduced the subject fur which they
were assembled—to aid in building a Protestant place of
worship in Lyons—by a reference to the dreadful atrocities
committed in that city in the early part of the French revo-
lution; and by expressing the pleasure that every friend to
religion must feel, that in a town where death was declared
to be an eternal sleep, and where the most profane indigni-
ties were cast in the most public manner upon the name of
our blessed Saviour and his holy sacrament—that in this
town, containing a population of above 180,000 souls, a
church' should be erected for the worship of God, and the
preaching of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, according
to the purity of the Protestant faith.
The Rev. Mr. CORDES then commenced his statement..
First, he gave a detailed account of the religious history- of
the town of Lyons, sheaving the persecutions many of its
inhabitants had endured for the truth's sake in the second
century—in the days of Peter Waldo—at the reformation—
at the time of the massacre on St. Bartholomew's day—and
at subsequent periods. Mr. Cordes then referred to the pre-
sent state of religion in Lyons. According to the enactments
of Napoleon Bonaparte, which still form the law throughout
France, the deacons of the Protestant churches are chosen
from the richest members, or those who are the highest rate-
payers of taxes to the government. As soon as the Rev. A.
Monod, the then pastor of the Protestant church at Lyons,
commenced preaching the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ
to his flock, the deacons thus appointed under the code of
Napoleon took offence, commanded hint to desist, and upon
his refusal dismissed him from his charge. Upon this into-
lerant act, so contrary to the spirit of the gospel, Mr. Monod
opened a room in his own dwelling-house, is here that part
of his flock who had benefitted by his ministry, gladly assem-
bled. This room was very soon found too small to contain
them. Upon his leaving Lyons to become Professor of
'Theology in the Protestant College of Montauban, Mr.
Cordes became their pastor. Soon after his taking the
charge, many Roman Catholics, who were much displeased
at Mr. Monod's arbitrary expulsion, came to hear the Word,
believed, renounced the- errors of the Church of Rome, and
openly professed the Protestant faith. Their numbers daily
increased, so that the room which had been engaged as a
place of worship, formerly a concert-room, was found to be
much too confined. In the spring of 1837, a remarkable
increase of hearers rendered the want of room more painfully
evident, and an effort was made to gain additional space by
converting a contiguous apartment into a part of the chapel-
room. Very soon, however, this enlargement was found
insufficient also. I'he increase of attendants was so great,
that the atmosphere of the room was frequently intolerable;
and whilst some of the hearers were from time to time obliged
to be carried out in a state of insensibility, others were alto-
gether unable to obtain access.
The idea of erecting a chapel had been often suggested
before, but various difficulties, and particularly the high rate
of building-ground and materials, had hitherto appeared
insuperable obstacles. At length every other consideration
seemed to vanish before the paramount duty of providing
room in the sanctuary of the Lord, for such numbers as were
pressing to hear the glad tidings of salvation.
An appeal was consequently addressed in the month of
February last, to the Christians of France and Switzerland,
and by many of these generous answers were returned.
Among the most devoted of those who have shown how
willingly they could make a sacrifice in favour of such a
cause, were the poor of Lyons themselves, who gave proofs
of a zeal and self denial truly affecting. But such is their
poverty, that the total sum received up to the time Mr.
Cordes left Lyons, was about 1:400, whereas the sum re-
quired for the construction of a chapel, and the purchase of
the ground calculated, with the current expenses of the year,
upon the most moderate scale, amounts to full £3,000
sterling.
Seeing, therefore,,the impossibility of obtaining this sum
in Lyons, a special council of the church was summoned on
the Bth May, 1838, and at this meeting it was resolved, that
the pastor of the church, the Rev. C. A. Cordes, be autho-
rised and requested to proceed to England, to solicit the aid
of British Christians.
Mr. Cordes then, in a very feeling manner, described some
of the difficulties with which his flock had to contend, and the
private persecution some of the members had endured for
the truth sake. This persecution was excited by the jealousy
of the Roman Catholic priests. An instance of this jealousy
is strikingly- exhibited in the Archbishop of Amasie, a
Roman Catholic Prelate, who, in order to impress the priests
in
the
diocese of Lyons (over which he exercises Episcopal
jurisdiction) with a sense of the necessity of making fresh
efforts to oppose the progress of the Gospel, has circulated
among his clergy a letter, in which the following, passages
occur:—

" The labours of Protestants to spread among the people
their pretended Reformation, and the various means they
employ to ensnare, seduce, and pervert the souls of the
simple and unsuspecting, ought naturally to excite the zeal
and the vigilance of the clergy. You know, sir, as well as
ourselves, the manceuvres of heresy at Lyons, and in seve-
ral other parts of our diocese, where emissaries, for the most
part foreigners, rush into the sheepfold like wolves, devour-
ing the flock. For it is no longer clandestinely that this sect
labour to make proselytes, or to shake the belief of the faith-
ful, but publicly in our city they hold their meetings, and in
the streets, on the bridges, and even at the very portals of
our churches, exhibit and distribute defamatory libels
against the clergy, and impious pamphlets, under the most
innocent titles, and Bibles translated after their tr,vn
manner."

After this interesting statement of facts, (which our limits
have constrained us to abridge,) Mr. Com)Es, with the feel-
ings of a christian ministsr, sent by his flock as a messenger
to the churches, appealed to those who loved their Saviour to
aid them in their wOrk. The appeal was made with such
christian affection and genuine simplicity, that all who were
present were deeply affected. There was scarcely one indi-
vidual but was in tears.
After a short pause, the following resolution was proposed
by the Rev. JAMES HA ',DANE STEWART, incumbent of St.
Bride's, and seconded by the Rev. Dr. RAt.PH, minister of
the Scotch church, and carried unanimously :
" That this meeting deeply sympathize with their Protest-
ant brethren in Lyons, and' deem it highly desirable that a
Protestant place of worship should be erected in that town
for their better accommodation, and that in aid of the funds
for building the same, a subscription be forthwith commenced,
"'That Adam Hodgson, Esq., be appointed Treasurer, by
Liverpool, or by Mr, H. Perris,
whein (or by the 444 of
•

bookseller, Church-street,) donations will be thankfully re-
ceived, and transmitted to the Managing Committee in
London.

The Rev. M r.l‘l A YNAR D,chaplain of the Mariner's Church,
then declared his intention, by divine permission, to bring
the subject before his congregation; and he trusted that, al-
though it was well known that they were not rich, they would
show that they had hearts to feel, and hands to communicate
to their Protestant brethren ; that they would do as was done
by the disciples at Antioch, who, when they heard of the then
threatened famine, " every man according to his ability, de-
termined to send relief unto brethren which dwelt in Judea,
which also they did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of
Paul and Barnabas."

Much regret was expressed that the meeting had not been
more generally known.
It was afterwards understood. that Mr. ConnEs had en-
gagements which obliged him to leave Liverpool the next
morning, but that arrangements would be made for a public
meeting at which Mr. Cordes would attend. A subscription
was immediately commenced. Several sums were subscrib-
ed, (for the particulars of which see advertisement.) After-
wards a gentleman sent a valuable gold snuffbox, and a lady
a very handsome gold chain and brooch. May these be only
as the first fruits of that christian liberality which it is hoped
dwells in many hearts.

* The pamphlets and Bibles thus stigmatized, are the doc-
trinal and controversial publications issued by the Tract and
Evangelical Societies of France, and the received Protes-
tant and even some Catholic French versions of the sacred
Scriptures circulated by the Bible Society.

REVISION OF THE IRISH MAGISTRACY.-THE
PROTESTANT CLERGY.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL ST✓IND4RD.

Stn,—This subject has already occupied the serious atten-
tion of the imperial legislature, and, during the discussion of
it, many facts of a strange and startling character have been
disclosed for public inquiry. It is not, however, for the pur-
pose of recurring to those facts, or of weakening their effect
by useless expansion or repetition, that I now solicit the at-
tention of your respectable and justly numerous readers. I
do so from a principle of duty. From communications, which
I have lately received from Ireland, I have extracted infor-
mation with which I think a discerning English public should
be made acquainted, and it is therefore that 1 respectfully
seek a place in Your talented and influential journal.
This information relates to the causes and effects of the
revision of the Irish magistracy by the Normanby adminis-
tration. And here, in limine, 1 remark, that wholesale as
have been the dealings of this viceroy, in behalf of the party
to whose bold and seditious working he owes the origin of
his power, and the permanence of his place; and ready and
willing as he has been for these two considerations to play
panderer to their appetites, and to pawn both the value and
dignity of his crown as a pledge for their adulation and sup-
port; yet, there has been no one act of his, springing from
such motives, more truly disgraceful, anti-national and anti-
English, than his revision of the magistracy. I emphasize
the word "anti-English" for this reason : —lf we analyze
the demands of the Irish factionists, and the concessions of the
English ministers, we shall find this one principle pervading
them all—the recognition of a separate independence, and a
divided interest as regards England and Ireland, and the
establishment of such a basis of legislation for the latter
as would render the wants, wishes, and dependencies of her
people, paramount to those of the community of the empire;
in other words, a severing of the connexion of Ireland as
an integral portion of the nation, and her formation into a
narrow, religious, and political sectary, where every enlarged
and liberal notion of government must be made subservient
to the ascendancy of a party. If this were not the case,
concealed no doubt, by jesuitical craft and cunning, how
could we be so often nauseated by the cant of "the majorities
and minorities of Irish Catholics, and Irish Protestants,"
of " the labour of the many being subsidized for the luxury
of the few," and all such like phrazes of modern agitation !
In fact, sir, it is the sedition of the demagogue which con-
stitutes the injustice of the government, for he divides and
subdivides the population of the empire into classes of
country and religion, that he may the snore render them
available to his dishonest purposes. 'Testing the conduct of
the Marquis of Normanhy, with respect to the Irish magis-
tracy, upon these principles, it is, that I pronounce it anti-
national, and above all anti-English.
But to the causes of the revision. You are no doubt aware
that the Popish party in Ireland, since they got a legislative
permission to be turbulent, have been loud and incessant in
their outcry against the occupation of the magisterial bench
by the Protestant clergy. They felt, and they felt aright
too, that as long as such men held their position upon that
tribunal, so necessary in such a country, that their efforts at
political ascendancy or religious peculation must be in a
great measure baffled and retarded. There was a barrier
between them and the success of their presumptive machi-
nations, and unless they could overpass or prostrate it by a
rush of popular force, they never could finally effectuate
their designs upon the church and state of Protestant Ire-
land. This barrier was the share which the clergy of the
established faith had in the local administration of justice.
Hence it was, that demagogues of every description, metro-
politan and provincial, lay and clerical, united in one conti-
nued and unrelenting hostility towards this much-injured
and calumniated body. There was no slander which malig-
nant bigotry could invent, and a ready credulity receive,
that was not circulated against them. Was there a male-
factor sent to prison, it was because he was a Papist, and
his committal was signed by a Protestant clergyman ! Was
theta a fraudulent debtor obliged to pay his just debts, oh !
it was an unoffending, honest, poor devil of a Roman Catho-
lic, victimised by the judicial partiality of a parson magis-
trate ! In short, Sir, there was no end to the false and
scandalous imputations sought to be cast upon the men,
whose integrity on the bench, and charity on the threshold,
should have aroused for them as many defenders from the
gratitude, as they had persecutors from the perfidy, of the
people. Thus the incendiary prints of the faction wete ever
filled with noxious and inflammatory statements of " partial
decisions "—" undue influence "—"corruption of the func-
tions of justice to party purposes"—" doings of the Orange
magistracy" —and such like accusations, got up for the
purpose of organising a violent and unceasing assault upon
the existence of the Protestant clergy in connection with
the magistracy of Ireland.
But, Sir, as long the country was happily in the possession
of rulers who held fast and firm by the institutions of our
ancestors, and who refused to be hallooed on as the wolf dogs
of democracy against everything time-hallowed and venera-
ble in diem, so lung their outcries and calumnies fell power-
less and ineffective on the ears of authority. But, Sir, when
a tame and humiliated set of placemen took their seals of
office at the dictation and under the patronage ofthe very lea-
der of the seditionists, who clamoured for the degradation and
spoliation of the Protestant Church, and its ministers spiri-
tually as well as temporally, the blindest politician could
foresee, that eventually no station of dignity or influence
would be left to either. The magisterial bench wasl the
first object for the fire of the revolutionary battery. Like
Napoleon, who secured his command in Italy by turning his
artillery on the people when they dared to resist manifest
usurpation; the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland thought the best
way to secure his command from the approbation of his di-
rectory was by annihilating the political power of the men,
who iii the general confusion were honest and fearless enough
to resist papal ascendancy and radical aggression. He,
therefore, has struck out every reverend name from the list of
the magistrates of the country. No matter what may have
been their experience, capacity, or character,—no matter how
their Christian kindness and charity interwove their duties
with the affections of the well-disposed of the community,
—no matter how they may have been revered for their
justice, or esteemed for their integrity,—no matter how they
may be preferred by the right-thinking and industrious of
the peasantry to the nevi homilies of modern democracy,—
and above all and before all, no matter how they have been
of late growingly and intimately connected with a spirit of
Protestant inquiry and a thirst for scriptural knowledge, and
thus, in their respective localities and districts, aggregating
in themselves a variety as well as excellence of duties, which
none but men of such devotion and principle could hope to
discharge; yet as such, the Viceroy of the Whig ministry
has swept them from the magisterial bench of Ireland. The
besom of political destruction has been busy with their vene-
rable utility, and the Protestant clergy of Ireland, in refe-
rence to their high calling as dispensers of justice between
man and man, exist only in the regret of the well-disposed
of the Catholic population, and the affectionate indignation
of their fellow-thinkers in politics and religion. In doing
this, the Marquis of Normanby has compromised the secu-
rity of the best interests of the empire, by the betrayal of one
of its most vulnerable parts, and has bartered the respecta-
bility of Protestant Ireland, for the patronage of its Popish
majority.
The effects of this revision of the magistracy can be readily
shewn. The new Coronet of the Marquis of Normanby I
will adduce as my first evidence To what does his lordship
owe the glitter 01 the bauble which the Whig ministry have
placed upon his brow? What paramount national good has
he achieved? What great and productive services has he
rendered the country? What fame and honour and public
claim has he now, that he is thus sent back to his seat of
government emblazoned with the pomp and circumstance of
a new title? I will tell you, Sir,—His political creator, the
man who called him from the questionable reputation of a
noble novelist and slave regenerator, to the once proud sta-
tion of England's vice-eerent,—he, has said that he has tran-
quillized distracted Ireland, that he has healed her divisions
and united her population, and therefore his vanity must have
a gratuity from ministerial gratitude. But the truth is be-
neath all this. Never was ribbonism, that fell conspiracy of
blood and murder and terror more wide spread and diffused,
yet still closely connected and linked together in all its intri-
cate ramifications, than it is at the present moment. Ire-
land, front one end to the other, is a slumbering volcano of
insurrectionary violence, and those who walk upon the sur-
face di eani not of the elements of destruction, that are con-
jugating and concentrating beneath. And yet, Sir, the Go-
vernor of such a country. and the chief' controller of its im-
mediate destinies is hailed and welcomed and trapped out
in the panoply of heraldic state, as if, like Washington, he
was "a source of energy, a bond of union, the centre of an
enlightened people's confidence." Here is the secret. The
magisterial bench of Ireland is converted into a kennel for
his own and his master's hounds. Every spirit that could
not be lashed into subserviency, every offspring of good breed
and blood, that could not live upon their political offal, and
turned fiercely upon the mean and paltry profligates set over
them; these have been excluded from the enclosures of go-
vernment patronage and influence, and none but the base and
the mongrel retained within them. Why then should not
Mr. O'Connell proudly and confidently stand up in the
house of Commons and say the ribbon conspiracy is at an
end in Ireland—yea, farther, challenge proof to the contrary?
He knows he cannot be satisfactorily contradicted. The
Viceroy is his pensioned, bedizened tool—the magisterial
bench his territory—the assistant barristers, in all the sus-
pected counties, his abettors—the chiefs of police his veriest
creatures—can he not then proclain what falsehoods his cor-
rupted imagination may conceive, or his mischievous heart
sanction ?

But the pernicious tendency of the measure does not rest
here. The administration of justice is rendered palsied and,
incapable. The people have no confidence in the parties
who have been promoted to the vacancies. The Roman
Catholics know them, and the Protestants fear them. Thus,
there are sowing the germs of a terrible state of things.
Impurity, partizanship, and corruption on the one hand—
distrust, retaliation, and hatred on the other. The popish
party are in possession of the sword of—l will not call it
justice, but power, and they would be belying every record of
history, and every legend of that tradition upon which they
so much rely, if they did not use it, to say the least of them,
to their own aggrandizing usurpation.
But, sir, let not the people of England imagine that actions
such as these—so defying of every recollection of the past, so
monstrous among the inconsistencies of the present, and so
perilous to the interests of the future, have not had their due
and appropriate effect upon the yet loyal and faithful few
who stand by the institutions .from which they have well-
nigh been excluded. There is an indignation of the heart as
well as the passions, which makes its vibration tingle through
every nerve of the social system, and which, ere long, will
gather strength enough to make itself both feared and felt.
It is tine that the Marquis of Normanby, in the pomp
.of his
new coronet, and while he is crouching under the wing. of
Mr. O'Connell, may affect to despise the growth of this in-
dignation. 0 yes, when he goes back to the rabble over
which he sways his bauble sceptre, and displays his share in
the spolia opima of the coronation, he will doubtless, in the
huzzas of the crowd and the adulation of the slavering hypo-
crites who minister to his vanity, reflect little upon the
wounds which his mischievous policy is inflicting on the
future peace and prosperity of unhappy Ireland. But let
him, and the party whose dominion he is so insidiously
nursing into power, even in this, the hey-day of their tri-
umph, beware ! Protestant Ireland was never yet conquered,
and, with the assistance of Divine Providence, never shall,
at least by the present asserters of infidelity and sedition.—
IRENIEUS.
I am, 8.x.,
.Liverpool, Jnly 16th, 1838.