The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1850-11-05 00:00:00

The real

has the Church of England, have her clergy and
her laity, and has the spiritual and temporal Head
of that Church, the same Protestant vitality, the
same determined antagonism to Romanism and its
heretical doctrines, which they possessed at the
period of the reformation, which they subsequently
placed on record in the act of settlement, and
which they have perpetuated the records of, since,
in the so-called guarantees against the inroads of
that power, which have accompanied our recent
legislation ? Is the Protestantism of the present
day sound ? Are we in earnest when we protest
against the idolatry and the tyranny of this apostate pressure
faith ? This is what we have now to prove, by re
deeds, not by professions; and the emergency will important section of the community. The repeal
try some men.—will test the sincerity of some who of the widow tax is almost universally demanded.
have been coquetting with Rome, conforming to The excise duties upon paper, malt, hops, soap, &c.,
her practices, imitating the frippery of her cere- are marked out for fierce attack. A portion, or the
monials, her bowings, her genuflections, her strange whole, of the demands might be successfully re-
attitudes and conceits, and even avowing her un- sited on the ground of the inability of the Govern-
authorized doctrines and her blasphemous fables. ment to spare the amounts which they bring in.
These men the present crisis will test. It will But a proposition by the Government to renew the
submit, in fact, to a searching ordeal, the whole income and property tax leads to some very im-
body of the Church, as well as the Protestant Dis- portant considerations, in which every class of the
seater. Thus far, we rejoice to say that we are community is interested. In the first place, the
warranted in hoping that we shall be enabled to public have a right to ask, "Is this tax to be a per-
meet the crisis triumphantly; and that the Church manent impost?" If the admission be made that
of England, at all events, will be found up and it is to be so, then we have a perfect right to de-
stirring in the performance of its duty. Pursuing mand that its provisions be made to bear more
the passage in his visitation address, which we have equitably than at present upon the public. If we
given above, the Bishop of London, who may be are still to be fooled in believing it to be only a
received as the representative of the high Church temporary impost, we have a night to ask for proofs
portion of our dignitaries, as distinguished from the that the policy, to enable us to pursue which it was
Tractarian innovators, says of the tenets of Rome first imposed, is operating to as to afford usan hope
and of her pretensions : of getting rid of it within any reasonable period.
"They may dazzle and confound a few weak minds, or The income tax, we hate already said, was im-
4te some ardent imaginations, but they will be in-
posed for a limited period and for a particular ob-
stinctively repelled by the common sense and richt feeling
of the people at large. Popery, as demanding an entire jest. ,
That
object was, by the reduction of the
prostration of men's intellect, before an authority which duties upon foreign articles of consumption, to re-
attempts to substantiate its claims, not by proofs, but by duce the rate of wages, and to give increased vitality
gratuitous and inconsistent assertions, cannot long retain to the manufacturing interests. This accomplished.
its hold upon the mind of a well-educated people imbued we were told that the revenue of the country would
with a knowledge of Holy Scripture. Its fundamental
principle is, that men are not to examine, but to believe; so greatly increase in productiveness as to enable
and at the present moment, by the re-assertion of super- Government to dispense with the tax. Has such
stitions, which the more learned writers of the Roman a result followed ? Can we boast of any increased
Church have long ago exploded, and by the revival of prosperity having been diffused throughout the
legends, suited only to an age of the grossest ignorance, it seems to be pushing that principle to its very utmost country ? We say, decidedly, No ! On the con-
length, as though its maxim were, that the more incredible trary, stagnation of trade, increasing poverty, and
a doctrine or history may seem, the more merit there is added misery amongst our labouring population
in believing it. And this fearless contempt and defiance I have been the characteristics of the past four or
of common sense has its effect upon some uninformed and five years. Our free trade journals have had to re-
humble minds, overpowering them by the very audacity cord not the triumphant issue of their boasted s-
-4
of its pretensions, while the authority which displays it ' ys
offers to relieve them from all the trouble and anxiety of a ,ern, but the squalor, degradation, and crime which
search after truth, assuring them that it is at once their have grown up increasingly amongst us during its
duty and their happiness not to inquire, but to believe. operation. They have had to drag to light the
But the Church of Rome employs different agencies and secrets of the sweating system, the horrors of the
instruments to different classes of men. For those whose Door sempstress's garret, and the worse horrors of
education and habits of mind require something like argu- •
ment and evidence, she has her subtle dialecticians and the infamous life to which, in its insane love of
persuasive orators, who do not fetter themselves with a cheapness, a professedly Christian nation drives a
very strict adherence to the canon of doctrine laid down large portion of its defenceless female population.
by the Council of Trent, but insinuate, if they do not ex- Is it the prosperity which was promised us which
pressly teach, various modifications of it, adapted to is driving thousands weekly of our skilled artisans
remove what they term the prejudices of their Protestant
to emigrate to other lands ; which is depopulating
hearers, especially of those who are members of the Church
of England. You will readily understand me to allude to f our rural districts, and converting once fertile and
the Oratorians, as they are called, and I name them prin- fruitful Ireland into a waste ? Is an encumbered
cipally
for the sake of expressing my earnest hope that estates commission a sign of prosperity ? Is the
none of you will give the least countenance to their pro- , reduction of one-third in the rental of property in
oeedings, nor run the risk of impairing the strength of your ; Liverpool and some other large towns a sign of
own convictions, and of weakening your attachment to the
church of which you are members, by attending any of Prosperity ?Is the fact that crime is daily attaining
their services or listening to their lectures." a height of daring and atrocity, previously un-
This is valuable testimony and faithful warning. , known, a sign of prosperity ? None of these things
With the same pleasure, and as equally significant are so; but, most striking circumstance of all, we
of an awakening to the danger of fondling with cannot point to any signal prosperity existing
this insidious apostacy, we receive the noble pro- ' amongst the manufacturing interest itself, which
test made by the beneficed clergy of the metropolis, ' was to be specially benefited by the robbery of the
and of other bodies of Protestant Churchmen agricultural classes. The home trade of the manu-
throughout the United Kingdom. . facturer has been for the past twelvemonths an un-
What, however, it may be asked, is to be the remunerative one; and their boasted foreign trade

captive