The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-11-26 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

THE MENACED MINISTERIAL INROADS
UPON PROTESTANTISM IN IRELAND.

" The coming events cast their shadows before."
LOCHIEL'S WARNING.

We live in an age of expediency—an age of treacherous
tampering with high and holy principles, and of cowardly
submission to the dictation of factious demagogues. Such
an age, all history warns us, has ever been followed in all
established states of society, by the violent breaking up of
the elements of which they are constituted—by the wreck
of valued institutions, and the triumph, for a time, of
fierce passion and anarchy. Happily, in this land, such
periods have hitherto been productive of good rather than
evil. The stern and sober genius of the British character,
temporarily obscured ( r hurried aside from the even tenor
of its way into bursts of wild frenzy, has passed through
the fire not only unscathed, but even purged of the im-
purities with ehich years of apathetic rest had sullied its
brightness. Like a stately tree which the tempest has
bowed well nigh to earth, it has thrown off in the struggle
the parasite plants which had wound round its trunk and
branches, crushed the foul reptiles which had been gnaw-
ing at his roots, and risen again, renovated, freshened,
and invigorated, to shadow with its verdure the herbage
and the flowers. We fear not, therefore, the coming
struggle. We feat not for any permanent damage to arise
from it to Great Britain, her time hallowed institutions,
or her liberties. But we must be prepared to vindicate
them. We must be up and resolved to bear them unsullied
and uninjured through the host of enemies by which they
are surrounded.
Happily, we are not left to speculate in uncertainty
with respect to the quarter from which the danger is to
approach us, to the hand which uplifts the weapon, or to
the battle field in which the struggle is to be fought to an
issue. The assault comes—alas that we should have to,
set down an admission so lamentable !—from the Conser-
vative ministers of a Protestant Queen; and the objects
of attack--the first objects, for who knows how far apos-
tacy will plunge into the slough of degradation when it
has once planted there its foot I—are the established Pro-
testant Church and the Protestant University in Ireland.
The doom of these venerable establishments has already
been resolved upon. The handwriting is upon the wall;
and if the mind and the steady resolve of England come
not at once to the rescue, another session of Parliament
will see the breach which has so long been insidiously
mined, at length carried, and the united forces of Popery,
Socinianism, and Infidelity howling in triumph over their
prostrate battlements.
We warned our readers, at the close of the last session
of Parliament, that the first step in this inroad upon the
Protestantism in Ireland was in preparation, and that it
would assume the shape of an attempted conciliation of
Popery and its allies, by the introduction of the infidel
principle of the system of the Irish Education Board into
the Protestant University of Trinity College, Dublin. And
now, we tell them, without reserve, that the disastrous
measure will be presented to the acceptance of the legis-
lature in the session which is approaching. And to what
hands is its preparation entrusted ? To the arch Jesuit,
who governs that Education Board—to the sworn ally of
Popery and Socinianism, Mr. NYSE ! We need say little
more of its character or its anti-Protestant tendencies,
when we state that it is sanctioned, if not suggested,
by Sir Robert Peel, and licked into shape by Mr. Wyse.
Already the mission of the latter gentleman, to prepare
the people of the sister eountry for the measure, has been
opened. At a recent meeting of the "liberal" and po-
pish parties, held In Cork, its terms were propounded by
him, vaguzdy indeed, yet with sufficieat clearness, as to its
general character, to rouse the enthusiasm of the anti—
English mass of the meeting in its behalf, whilst the pro-
test against it of the Protestants present was clamour-
ously cried down. A natural result of this first overt
step has been an indignant cry of reprobation from the
Conservative press of Ireland,--amongst whom it is not
a little significant, with respect to the amount of Irish
opposition which be will have to encounter, that Sir
Robert's anti-Protestant policy does not meet with a
single supporter,--whilst the Popish and Repeal faction
in that country is loud in gratulation over their approach-
ing triumph, and the consummation which they see in the
distance, viz ; the ultimate downfall of the Protestant
church, arid the submission of Ireland to the close em-
brace and the undivided authority of the see of Rome.
As a sample, and a very mild one, of the feeling of the
Protestant press upon the subject of he proposed outrage
upon Trinity College, we extract the following remarks
from the leading journal of Ireland—the Dublin Evening
Mail:—

" Within the last few years six new professorships and ten addi-
tional fellowships have increased the efficiency of its literary staff.
The entire curriculum of studies, scientific, classical, and theologi-
cal, has been, within the same period, reformed and advanced; and
the best proof of its present efficient condition is to be found in the
examination papers of the several classes and subjects of education.
In practical science a great desideratum has been in like manner
supplied ty the establishment of a school of engineering. Its divinity
school bears as high a character as any in the world, and not only
supplies a learned and efficient clergy for the Established Church of
Ireland, but has for some years (and this is a matter of the utmost
importance) powerfully assisted in giving au active, zealous, and
well-informed clergy to the west of England.
" Is such an establishment as this to be tampered with—are the
benefits, religious, moral, scientific, and social, which it diffuses
through the country to be sacrificed, or even risked, for idle theories
and crude experiments, either of a vain sciolist, or of a conceding
administration ? '

The whole country will say N 0 to the ruinous proposition."

We mean not, however, to say that the contemplated
tampering with the Protestant character of Trinity Col-
lege will be proceeded with, without some preliminary ac-
tion upon the public mind, to prepare it for acquiescence,
by an attempt at justification. Oh, no ! Sir Robert Peel
takes few steps so direct and bold as would be a straight
forward attack upon that or any other institution. The
epithet " tortuous" is the distinguishing one of his pre-
sent policy, as it has been that of his entire political ca-
reer. Accordingly we are to have a preliminary " en-
quiry ;" we are to have astute instruments employed, of
whom, no doubt, Mr. Wyse be one, to depriciate the
character and usefulness of Trinity College, as at present
constituted and regulated, and to ferret out pleas for its
conversion into an Infidel University. We shall have
the old sectarian arguments against education in the doc-
trines of the Established Church set up by titular bishops
and backsliding Protestants. Such a process is, in fact,
now going on ; and of the mode in which it is being con-
ducted and its objects,: let British Protestants judge
from the following passage in the Dublin Monitor:—

" An inquiry is at this moment in progress, and the question of
academic, collegiate, and University education for Ireland is well
nigh settled No minister can any longer retard the question of a
free, liberal, perfect, and permanent system of education for Ire •
land. We anxiously await the coming session."
And what is the opinion of the well-informed Protes-
tants of Ireland, with respect to the intent and issue of
such " enquiry ?" The following passage from a late
number of the Dublin Warder will afford an ample so-
lution of the enquiry :

" While on this subject we may mention that we have received an
able letter from a scholar and divinity student of Trinity College,
which is too long for insertion in our present number, but contains
an important statement we cannot keep back. It seems that Dr.
Elrington, the Regius Professor of Divinity, in his opening prelec-
tion this term, mentioned to his class the possibility that this might
be the last year in which he would be privileged to address them
as an officer of " A PROTESTANT" University. This from such a
quarter is emphatic. The same correspondent informs us that the
divinity students of Trinity College intend to meet publicly next
week in the Rotunda, to protest against any interference of Sir R.
Peel with the University, and that the Rev. It. J. M`Ghee will be
requested to take the chair. We see also that a pamphlet on the
crisis of the Church of Ireland, from the pen of the Venerable Dr.
Millar, of Armagh, has been published yesterday by Curry and Co.,
making a powerful appeal on behalf of the Church against the trai-
tor premier. Once more we say, let us be up and doing ; for, in the
words of Dr. Millar, the struggle is for the existence' of Protes:
tantism in Ireland."

Alas that we should have to record such doings, and
such opinions of the faithlessness, of a professedly Pro-
testant and Conservative cabinet !

But it is not sufficient for such a cabinet that the Pro-
testant
character of one of the most valued institutions of.;
our country is to be sacrificed to the demands of Popery
—that the University of Dublin is to be prostrated and
degraded before the aggressive foot of Rome—hut M AY-
NooTH also, the hot bed of sedition, from *hose impure
recesses crawl abroad, through the length and breadth of
the empire, the spawn of the filthy teachings of Peter
Dens and his fellows in bestial and murderous suggestion ;
—MAYNOOTH is to be aggrandised, and her sacerdotal
propagators of treason and outrage multiplied by the
same apostate hands which are preparing to desecrate the
revered halls of old Trinity. The Popish seminary is to
receive an increased grant—a largely increased grant—
from the treasury of Great Britain; and with respect to
the terms of such grant the Dublin Freeman informs us
that--
‘. On Saturday a deputation from the assembled prelates, consist-
ing of the four archbishops, waited on the Lord Lieutenant with in-
structions explicitly to declare, on behalf of that learned body, that
were an increase of the grant to Maynooth College determined on
by government, it should not be accompanied by any change in the
constitution and fundamental laws by which the college is at pre-
sent governed; and that if accompanied by any condition, they
would feel it their duty not to accept of the protferred increase. The
deputation had a long interview, rt which Lord Eliot was present.
The answer of his excellency was by no means satisfactory, he hav-
ing totally avoided giving any promise that no change in the consti-
tution of the institution would be attempted."

Cool enough the assumption of their reverences ! In-
solent enough the attempt to dictate to the Government
the terms upon which they shall be permitted to violate,
in favor of Popery, the Protestant principles of the British
constitution. But a far better, because a more independ-
ent, authority, the Dublin Monitor, which, although a
Popish and Repeal authority, has never fallen down pnb-
licly to lick the feet of O'Connell and his ruffian priest-
hood, assures us that no such gingerly scruples animate
Sir Robert Peel, in his projected sacrifice of principle to
the aggressive demands of faction. Hear the Monitor in
comment upon the above paragraph :

" We are informed that the above representation as to the nature
of the interview with his excellency and Lord Eliot is factious in
the extreme, and wholly unwarranted by the facts. The last sen-
tence is, indeed, worthy of the discomfited champion of the exploded
protest.'
. .
•

" Although no definite promise was given to increase the May-
nooth grant—because his Excellency could not give one, the increase
not resting with him—it was well understood that his Excellency is
favourable to an increase, while it weer was contemplated that
such an increase should e accompanied by any change in the
fundamental laws of the institution "

We believe implicitly the independent authority. We
reject that of the slavish organ of Popery, which only
seeks, in concert with the minister, to blind the people of
England to the full baseness and folly of his designs.
That Sir Robert Peel is not acting Without some con-
cert with a portion, at least, of the Popish and Repeal
party in Ireland, a recent occurrence will serve to testify.
Our readers will, doubtless, remember the strenuous op-
position which was offered, during the last session of par-
liament, to the " Charitable Bequests Bill." It was
denounced, in parliament and out of doors, as an insult to
the Roman Catholics of that country ; and it was espe-
cially and indignantly declared that the Romish hierarchy
could never consent to take their seats at the new board,
or to interfere with its operation. An announcement,
however, has just been made, in the columns of the
Evening Freeman, which proves that a portion of that
hierarchy have renounced their past enmities, and, doubt-
less, for a consideration, are willing to embrace the

thing they loathed. Dr. Crolly, Roman Catholic Arch-
bishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland, Dr. Murray,
Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Kennedy,
Roman Catholic Bishop of Killaloe, with the Right Hon.
Anthony Richard Blake and John Richard Corballis,
Esq., laymen, have consented to take their seats at the
board. The quarrel is patched up ; and the Whig section
of the Romanists of Ireland are about to pull lovingly to-
gether with a Conservative administration, in the grateful
work of inflicting more " heavy blows and great discou-
ragements" upon Protestantism In Ireland !
Can British loyalists and Protestants—can the friends
of British connexion in Ireland—forget the lamentable
results of similar alliances in past time ? We cannot.
They are written in letters of fire upon our hearts. They
are proclaimed aloud, in the exulting shouts of triumphant
Popery, throughout the land—in the clang of convent
bells startling, morning and evening, the ear of slumber-
ing Protestantism—in the proud seats of superstition
rising around us, mocking with their lavish magnificence
the humb'e and unadorned erections of our church and
straining to vie even with our proudest cathedrals—in the
swarms of vulgar emissaries of Rome, whose furtive and
scowling looks meet us in every thoroughfare, as they ply
unceasingly their mission of evil, and prowl about from
victim to victim. 01) ! what a fearful amount of evil has
Sir Robert Peel already to answer for, as the result of his
insidious and fatal concessions ; and hove vastly will it be
increased, unless the further progress of those concessions
be arrested by the indignant voice of an aroused Protestant
peoglel

- We invite our fellow townsmen who love their religion,
who love their country and its liberties, to ponder well
over these signs of the times in which we live. We tell
them emphatically that now is the time, if ever there was
a time, when every lover of his Church, beset as she is on
every side, deserted as she is by those who are bound to
protect her,—attacked, as are her pure doctrines, by
masked enemies within her pale, and open enemies with-
out,—poisoned by a false liberalism, as are too many of
her professing friends, and perverted as are the hearts of
more by the mammon-worship of the age,—to buckle on
the armour of the Truth, to throw political and even per-
sonal friendship to the winds, and to rally together with
the intelligible and resolved motto, deeply graven on their
hearts—NO SURRENDER !

A FEW THOUGHTS ON THE RECENT MA-
GISTERIAL PROCEEDINGS, BY A MAN OF
THOUGHT.

I.—l do not think that I shall pay due honor to Mr.
Edward Rushton if I do not make his speech—his " elo-
quent speech," as the Mercury calls it—the subject of
my first thoughts.
2.—1 think it was not discreet in Mr. Rushton to re-
mark that " his firmest endeavours had been, ever since
he became police magistrate in Liverpool, to prevent
every man connected with the administration of justice
meddling, either for or against, in any political or local
squabble whatever." People are apt to remember past
interferences " of this very same dignitary ; and some
are even illnatured enough to hint that his present course
is somewhat like " meddling in a political or local
squabble," and that his eyes have been most conveni-
ently blind to such "meddling" when his own political
party were in the ascendant.
3.—1 think it was superfluous in Mr. Rushton to tell
us that he entertains "strong opinions upon local and
political matters," when he must know that all the
world thinks that he owes his elevation to the office of
stipendiary, far more to his "strong opinions upon po-
litical matters," than to the possession of any super-
abundant fitness for that office.

4.—1 think I could laugh at Mr. Rushton's allusion
to " the noble science of self-defence." I always thought
that Jem Ward and John Langan were the greatest pro-
fessors of that art in Liverpool, but Mr. Rushton's
practice is very unlike theirs, which was hard-bitting,
whilst his is only old-womanly scolding. " Noble
science," forsooth ! Why, every frequenter of Billings-
gate can practise it quite as well as a stipendiary magis-
trate.

5.—1 think it is a pity that Mr. Rushton should have
"the misfortune to remain in the office he holds" when
he is so enamoured of the "noble science of self-
defence," and so many of our heavy weights want
customers.

6.—1 think, to conclude with Mr. Rushton, that, in
his contest with Mr. Hodgson, he made a sorry Goliath.
Although a " man of war from his youth upwards,"
versed in the " noble science of self-defence," and "a
Colossus," to boot, the sling and ttone of David told a
tale.

7.—1 think, as a postscript to Mr. Rushton, that in
the next insurance effected upon the furniture of the
Sessions-house, a clause ought to be inserted to provide
against the demolition of the desks and tables by the fists
of magisterial dignity in a passion.
B.—l think, as a postscript to Mr. Rushton, No. 2,
that, as a subject for the next Exhibition of Paintings,
the " Colossal" form of the stipendiary in a stupendous
rage, as he appeared at the Sessions-house on this occa-
sion, might form an excellent study for " the madness of
Hercules."

9.—1 think it was a pity that Mr. David Hodgson " did
not see" Mr. Wm. Earle. He should carry a mic
scope, rather than lose sight of so charming an object
10.—I think I wonder—no, on second thoughts,
don't—that Wrn. Earle could be present and take part in
the magisterial attempt to avenge his defeat in St. Anne's
Ward upon poor Mr. Parker. William has always been,
in my humble thoughts, a little-minded being. I never
thought, however, he had in his composition so small a
portion of the man, and so much of the wild cat. Poor
William ! thou art a most cantankerous piece of miscalled
humanity. _ _ _

think it was rather good of William to forget
" the placard " referred to by Mr. Hodgson, and yet to
remember that it was circulated " during his mayoralty."
I think, however, I admired more to hear him boast that
"he did not bear those rancorous feelings that some
others generally did." (!) I don't think, but " some
others" think, that William is made up of "rancorous
feelings." I think I don't know any more amiable feeling
which enters into his composition.
12.—1 think, upon the whole, that the proceedings of
their worships were very contemptible throughout. and
excellently adapted to bring the discretion of the bench
into disrepute.

13, and last.—l think I have thought too much, and
so has the community, about so paltry and factious an
affair.

THE STANDARD RAILWAY MAP.

We extract from our provincial contemporaries the fol-
lowing gratifying notices of the Railway Map which we
furnished in the STANDARD last week. In compliance
with a request from the Railway Record, we forwarded
the plan to London, and it appeared in the columns of
that paper on Saturday :
(From the Railway Record.)
We are indebted to the courtesy of the editor and pro-
prietors of the Liverpool Standard, for the loan of the
very excellent plan (on the opposite page) of the railways
in that and the surrounding most important districts.
The " plan " appears at first sight to be a wood-cut, but
it is in reality entirely typographical. We have never
before seen anything of the kind attempted on so large a
scale, and certainly the execution does great credit to the
Standard establishment. We are indebted also for the
following masterly description to the same journal, one of
the very best of the many good journals emanating from
Liverpool, and which is particularly deserving of com-
mendation in respect of its railway intelligence. [Our
contemporary then gives the lengthened description of
the railways, which appeared in the STANDARD on Tues-
day last.]
(From the Shrewsbury Conservative.)
NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE.—The spirited proprietors
of the Liverpool Standard, on Tuesday last, furnished
their readers with a beautifully-executed map of the ex-
isting and projected railways, accompanied by a lucidly-
drawn-up explanatory description. It shews, in a strik-
ing manner, the advantages about to be conferred on
Shropshire by its rescue from its present state of isola-
tion, through the proposed Shrewsbury, Wolverhampton,
and Birmingham, and Shrewsbury and Chester lines.
We perceive that the conductors of the same paper (which
is published on Tuesday) now communicate to their read-
ers the Mark-lane and Smithfield markets, and the Lon-
don share-list of the previous day, together with whatever
intelligence may reach the metropolis by seven o'clock on
Monday night. The train conveying this information
arrives at Liverpool at ten minutes after five a.m.; cur
contemporary issues his broadsheet at six, and his readers
have thus on their breakfast tables, on Tuesday morning,
all that has transpired in London up to the night before.

(From the Preston Chronicle.)
LANCASHIRE AND CHESHIRERAILWAYS.—TheLivcr-
pooI Standard, of Tuesday last, has given a detailed ac-
count of all the railways completed and projected in the
above counties, illustrated ,by an exceedingly ingenious
typographical lan or chart, which exhibits their respective
lengths, and relative bearings and positions, together with
all their branches and ramifications, from the termini of
the Lancaster, and Fleetwood and Wyre, at Preston, to
near the extremity of the Grand Junction, and the pro-
posed Newton and Shrewsbury lines, at Wolverhampton.
The towns comprised in the plan are Preston, Blackburn,
Burnley, Todmorden, Haslingden, Rochdale, Oldham,
Bury, Bolton, Wigan, Southport, Formby, Ormskirk,
Leigh, Ashton, Stockport, Manchester, Newton, St.
Ilelens, Prescot, Huy ton, Liverpool, Birkenhead, Sutton,
Hale, Runcorn, Warrington. Altringham, Brook, Knots-
ford, Northwich, Middlewich, Crow, Newcastle, Stoke,
Stafford, Wellington, Shrewsbury, Wem, Ellesmere,
Wrexham, Mold, Holywell, and Chester, the whole of
which important places are connected with a net-work
of railways, the aggregate length of which must be several
hundreds o' miles. The total number of projected lines
shown on this map is about thirty, and of those already
finished about twenty.