The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-06-02 00:00:00

empire !

cities !

The position of the Roman Catholic clergy of Ire-
land, in connection with the agitation now going on in
that distracted land, is well worthy of our serious con-
sideration. The declaration of Dr. Higgins, the titular
bishop of Armagh, that the entire body of the prelates
of the Romish Church in Ireland are in favour of the
Repeal of the Union, and of the measures of spoliation
and outrage contemplated as the issue of such repeal,
stands, as yet, uncontradicted except by Dr. Murray.
In his case, even, it is to be doubted whether the re-
pudiation of sympathy with repeal is so perfectly sin-

cere as he would wish it to be believed ; and we have,
in addition to this damning evidence of the designs of
the Romish party, the fact, which will assuredly nut be
denied, that ninety-nine out of a hundred of the priest.
hood throughout the country ore ardent and pledged
repealers! By that body is carried out the fearful or-
ganisation—all but a military organisation—which we
see at this moment existing amongst the deluded pea-
santry. It is by them that the vast bodies assembled
at Cork, at Limerick, at Longford, were marched in
triumph, with banners and music, and, we may add,
with arms in their hands, to the places of gathering.
Their chapels are the sources from which the stream-
ing netlitiou is eprestd through every hemlet and every
ILlWniefai witi it is atstetly OnetAlgdi er attemittl

o be concealed, that when the decisive hour has ar-

rived--when blood has to be shed and outrage to stalk

openly abroad, it will be by these peaceful and pious
ministers of Christ (0 that the frenzied masses will be

,ed on to the consummation of their meditated atro-

There must indisputably he something peculiar in
he system of education, and religious and political
training of the ministers of a church who are to be

'ound thus engaged, to a man, in the pursuit of ob-

jects only attainable by violence, and which must be
attended with the temporal ruin of the people amongst
whom their ministry is placed. Amongst the priest-
hood of other churches and sects political differences
are to be found existing. Rome alone is united! Her
clergy, disaffected towards the British connexion, are
united in their disaffection. They advance towards
their object by the same path; and openly proclaim
that they will seek it even through blood and civil war.
They are at this moment only nominally subjects of the
British Crown; and look forward, end march forward,
to the establishment of another supremacy in Ireland—
to the establishment, in fact, of the tiara of Rome as
the supreme power in that land, and to the destruction
of every thing within its shores recognising British
authority, or bearing the hated SAXON name !
Such is the position of the clergy of the Romish
Church in Ireland. Why is it thus ? How comes it
to be thus ? Surely the time has at length arrived
when these questions should be imperatively put by
the united people of Great Britain. We provide from
year to year the funds for which these men are trained
to the sacred ogee. We endow MAvNoorn—the
hotbed from which this vast mass of disaffection and
disloyalty springs up—with the money of the Protes-
' tant people of Great Britain. AVE teach the priest-
hood of Ireland—as a nation we teach them—this reli-
gion, and confer upon them the qualifications for this
ministry, which from the first moment of their entry
upon its sacred offices impels them into the pursuit of
objects dangerous to the security and entireness of the
British Empire ; and it is surely but just and wise that
the British Parliament should promptly and deter-

minedly demand a knowledge of the peculiar teaching
of an institution, of which such are the teeming fruits.
What we ask, and we have a right to ask, are the doc-
trines inculcated, at the expense of the British public,
in. the College of Maynooth ?
It is too late, now, to tell us of the uncharitableness
of such a demand. It is too late to whimper of " con-
ciliation" and " expediency." These have been tried—
and disastrous has been the result of the experiment !
It is to be found in the hundreds of thousands of
banded traitors in Ireland, clamouring day by day for
the destruction of British property and life in that un-
happy land ! It is to be found in the fact that we
know not the day or the hour in which the blood of
thousands of loyal and right-hearted subjects in Ireland
may not stain the feet of the wolf of Rome ! It is to
be found in tumultuous gatherings of misguided men
longing for the time when they may he suffered to
howl over the defaced altars of our Protestant Church ;
to sweep away from the land every vestige of the
power and the civilisation of England, and to rush into
the darkness of a spiritual despotism ;—to place their
necks and their consciences beneath the feet of a
Church which, amid the light and the truth of the
nineteenth century, is still insatiatable in her thirst of
power, and ruthless in her cravings for blood, as in the
darkness of past ages !
It is too late, we repeat, to tell us of concession
and conciliation—to tell us of peace when there is no
peace. The master evil of Ireland is in the faith
which is taught in the seminary of Maynooth ; and, in
the name of the Protestant people of Great Britain, we
demand to know, now, WHAT IS THAT FAITH ?

The gentleme n of the. Anti-Corn-Law League ar
just now striving hard to throw dust in the eyes of the
merchants and citizens of London, and enlist their
sympathie or their pockets, in behalf of their selfish
agitation. if we may judge, however, by the names
of those wtto are said to attend their various city meet-
ings, the :tempt has been hitherto rewarded with but
a very slight amount of success. Nor is this wonder-
ful, when we glance at the miserable trash which Mr.
Richard Cobden and his fellow spouters have thus far
dished up for their acceptance. Such raving as the
fQllowing, for example, which was uttered by this gen-
tleman in the presence of an assembly at the Hall of
Commerce, in the city, is surely much better calcu-
lated for Saint Giles's or Bedlam, than for the hear-
ing of the sober and reflecting merchants of the metro-
polis of Great Britain.

After describing to his audience the state of our re-
ations with Brazil, he proceeded in this strain :

" Why, you do not understand these things, or you
would be no more quiet than I am under them. There
is no man of spirit that understands them that could
he quiet (D It is an ignomy—it is a disgrace to such
a state of things. Why, there might be some merit—
some consolation at all events—to be under the thrall
of such men as Cmsar, a Napoleon, or a Cromwell ; but
to be the eoor paltry slaves of the mongrel aristocracy
of the sugar hogshead—to be the creatures of such sor-
did oligarchy, is to suffer a deeper degradation than ever
was inflicted upon a people, by a Ilahomet Ali, or any
barbarian conqueror, or usurper, that I ever read of."
Is it to be wondered at that men who can deliberately
utter in public such rubbish as this, are shrunk from
with disgust by the wealthy merchants and trades of
London ? Is it tt. I.e wondered at that their city audi-
ences are the tailor e, barbers, and other respectable
persons, who happen to be engaged in celebrating the
festival of their favorite saint—" Saint Monday ;"

We are quite content to leave our contemporary, the
Manchester Guardian, in possession of his fancied tri-
umph. He, of course, is perfectly aware of his own
position, and we are content with our own. We have
offered to grapple with the question, which he was so
confident that we would shrink from, provided he
would state it distinctly. Ile hes refused so to do;
and we are confident that those who know the Guardian
will agree with the prudence of our determination to
enter upon no discussion with him upon a question
which our opponent leaves so loosely stated that he can
back out of it at pleasure. The Guardian is rather an
adept at this kind of practice.

FACTORY EDUCATION BILL

TO THE

RUN,. W 11,1.1,114 VEVERS

Sin,—l am sorry you should have addressed me as an
enemy to the Wesleyan Methodists, or as having made any
unkind or unfriendly proposal to them. Nothing could have
been farther from my intention: and on reviewing my lan-
guage as reported in the newspapers, I am happy to say that
I cannot find any just ground for the accusations which you
have felt it your duty publicly to advance against me.
By some anonymous, and to me ur,known, writer, who has
published a defence of me against your charges, 1 find the
following description of the object I had in view. The writer
has fairly gathered it from the speech, and I cordially adopt
his description as correct and true. He says—

The appeal made by Mr. M'Neile to the Wesleyan body was,
in broad terms, this. We admit the amount and efficacy of the
educational efforts made thus tar by the Wesleyan body. We see.
however, at the same time, their inability to cope with the vast ex-
tent of the evil disclosed to our view. The state has also arrived

at this conviction, accompanied by a sense of its own duty in the
emergency presented ; and has offered a plan by which the evil
may be fully and efficiently grappled with. But the state has a re-
ligion, that religion being the religion of the Church of England, in
all the essentials of which Wesleyaus agree ; and she puts it to you,
as a matter of earnest consideration, whether, having already done

no much for the promotion of Scriptural education, and feeling
that your utmost zeal is unequal to the work which presses to be

done, you nre disposed to stand in the way of that work being un-
dertaken by her, through the agency of the established clergy, or

merging your sectarian prejudices, you are disposed to occupy the

broad ground of Christian good FOR ALL, and to say to the
CHURCH " God speed you to the full accomplishment of the task

of duty, to the performinice of which we confess ourselves with

our willingnems, unequal."

This was the spirit and substance of Mr. M'Neile's appeal to
the Wesleyan body. In Christian kindness It was made; but how

ha); it been met by Mr. Veeet4 ?

This is just—except that I used no expression so harsh as
sectarian prejudices. Asa specimen of the manner in which
you have treated my speech, I will here take the liberty of
transcribing a passage from vonr letter, and compare it with
the passage in the speech to which it refers, and from which
it contains a partial quotation :

And now that both Church and State are roused, what is the

philanthropic mode of proceeding which you, ns the champion of

the claims of the Clergy, propose for adoption? Is it to stay
plague? No the plague has been stayed in that portion of the

. _
community which hris been brought tinder iustruction by the Wes

leyans and the Dissenters. Tour proposal substantial!) is that the

We‘leYBP`; nod Dissemers should cease to labour in this moral tt

F t.rt ; that the Clergy should enter upon their labours, and take cx

clusive poAsession of the Lich t : the inevitable emmeinienett of which

would be the prevalence and the exteurdon of the plague. You pro.
pow, not actually to attempt to stRY
the plague, but to labour
Wittt° 14,400 ha been et,nyed Your 9kVti lang.ittact, which

tO.l hr 48111 tU tft WCtidysttOj IN "We riAntilt mike tivtio,

of the children for whom we have 80 long toiled being taken from
our institution, and consigned to the care of a board of trustees,

the official chairman of which is a Tractarian, who condemns the
principle of the Reformation, and avows his desire to unprotes-
tantize the English Church." This is a distinct and unequivocal

avowal on your part that your object is, not so much to stay the
plague where it actually rages, as to take possession of the fruits of
the labours of the Wesleyans and Dissenters. What patriotism !

What piety ! This is a sample of class interest!

—Letter, p. 7•

Now compare with this, the report of the part of my speech
iere referred to, the same report which you say was before
'ou, namely, that given in the Liverpool Standard:—

And now you have a golden opportunity of showing the true ele.
vation of the motives and principles by which you are actuated,

You may say we have supplied for a nason, as far as we could, the

lack of service of both Church and State : we have been forward to

Atand in the gap, and by all our energies to stay the plague. Tha