The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-11-23 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

In consequence of the unexpected demand for copies of the
STANDARD containing the Rev. Hugh M`Neile's Lecture
on the life of Dr. Franklin, we have had an extra issue of
the paper, a few copies of which still remain on sale. We
believe this is the only correct report of the splendid
oration delivered by the reverend gentleman, as the
pamphlet is announced to contain merely the " original
notes ;" and it is well known that the best specimens of
Mr. M`Neile's oratory are the extemporaneous effusions
by which he thrills his audience, and which are preserved
in the STANDARD of Friday.
The party who favoured us with an advertisement without a
cash remittance, from Dumfries, may be far north, but we
hail from John o'Groat's house.
We will hand the communication signed " W. T." to Mr.
Brindley, who will make the best use of the facts adduced.
In the letter of " P. S. J." in the STANDARD of Friday last,
on the architecture of Great George-street Chapel, the
word printed " En style" should have been " Eustyle."
It is contrary to our practice to insert reviews of any pub-
lication unless the work be forwarded to us.
We shall make some further inquiries as to the communica-
tion from a Student in Trinity College, Dublin, and in the
meantime refer him to a letter in another column.

Ebt Ribrrpool gl)tanDarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 23, 1841

The Liverpool Journal, in its number of Saturday,
enters a protest against what it anticipates as the plan
of the Education Committee of the Council with re-

spect to the Corporation Schools ; but it is unable to

raise any new objection, or add any novel argument to
that series with which the public is well acquainted as
flowing from the theological school of Romanism. It

enters its protest, we presume, as the organ of the
Church of Rome in this quarter, and in a strain which
would lead us to surmise that the document was drawn
nu by a gownsman of the sacred college ; but, we re-
peat, it leaves the question just where it found it. He
informs us of the Roman Catholic doctrine on the Sub-
ject; we knew it already. He calls upon us to recog-
nise that doctrine; we affirm that we are not bound to
do so to the extent he requires.
In a country which has a Church Establishment, a
dissenter from its worship has no right to ask that his
religion shall be taught, or that its principles shall he
favoured by the State. There is no one section of our
numerous forms of dissent which makes such a de-
mand, saving and excepting that which of all others
has the least right to make it ; namely, that—for we
class it under the head of dissent—that of the profess-
ors of Romanism.

That the State has made some compliances in this

respect—compliances that may seem to warrant the
demand of more—we admit; but these compliances
have never met with the general sanction of the na-
tion ; they have been over and over again protested
against; they form a subject of earnest controversy at
this moment ; and, upon the whole, they constitute no
precedent nor authority which can compel us to carry
out the principle or extend the rule to new cases. The
Maynooth grant has not yet been cancelled; but sure
we are of this, that the modest request made the other
day by the Roman Catholic bishops to Earl de Grey in
Dublin, that he would support their memorial to have
that grant doubled, or greatly increased in amount,
will not be complied with.
But the demand of the Roman Catholics in Liver-
pool, it will be said, is not to have their religion made
a subject of instruction in the municipal institutions of
the town, but simply that a well-known doctrine of
their church may be respected therein, and that the
Bible may not be opened as a class-book, or perused at
all, by the children of their communion. This is what
they ask; and upon this the question arises, have they
any right to make such a demand, or is there intole-
rance, bigotry, or anything politically inexpedient, or
improper, in refusing to comply with it ?
Roman Catholics must be quite aware of their posi-
tion as a dissenting body, and as one small in number
as compared with the great hulk of the population who
belong to the Established Church. Politically, there-
fore, they have no right to come forward, and say, you
must form your system of municipal or national in-
struction so as to agree with our peculiar tenets; they
have, we shall say, no " right" to claim more than
perfect liberty of conscience, and an unfettered discre-
tion to resist, or not, to such public schools as the
State, or its municipal institutions may provide, as they
If they appear to solicit anything of this sort,
they can only come as men who ask a favour--as men
who claim a peculiar indulgence ; and the force of their
application must depend altogether on the reasonable-
ness and justice of this request. "We pray," say
they, " to supersede the Bible, so far as our children
are concerned,—and for these two principal reasons :
first, because we hold that ,there is an infallible inter-
position of Scripture which is of as much importance
as the Scripture itself; and secondly, because we do
not esteem your version of the Bible to be a correct

please

one. This is the ground of our objection ; and we
pray you to give it consideration." Such is the sub-
stance of the long article which appeared in the Jour-
nal • but we are at a loss to see how the writer fortifies
his case by entering into these particulars. He is ad-
dressing himself, it should be remembered, to members
of the Established Church, and to Protestants gene-
rally, and to men therefore who reject the supposed

- -
equality of any human authority with that of Holy

Writ as a most dangerous and blasphemous error, and

who have as good reason to be satisfied with regard to
the almost faultless perfe'.tion of our authorised version
of the Bible, as they have as to any other Sven autho-

rised and established fact whatever. Does our con-

temporary call then upon such men to stultify them-
selves,—to deny their faith,—and set their seal to the

fabulous pretences of Romanism ?

Does he expect

them to say, we put aside the Bible, because Roman
Catholic priests
seek to have their word regarded as

that of God, and claim a right to close its pages against
all who presume to question their audacious assurnp-
_ . .

tion; and also, because these same infallible priests al-

lege that our Bible is an incorrect translation, notwith-
standing all the incontestable and overwhelming evi-

dente which we possess to the contrary ? Can any
Roman Catholic, we say, expect that Protestants will
affirm this monstrosity, or do an act which would even

remotely imply their assent to it ? We say then that