The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-11-03 00:00:00

SIXTH ADDRESS TO THE PROTESTANTs OF
THE EMPIRE, BY THE COMMITTEE OF THE
NATIONAL CLU 6.

We are asked, Why this stir about Protestantism ?
What is our drift? \\There is the danger ?—Plain ques-
tions which shall have a plain answer.
1. We admit that we regard our national interests as in
danger, and our Protestant principles especially. We
have raised the cry of danger, and we avow it. To meet
the danger we bid you collect your strength, and fix your
aim—one great aim to baffle the plans of those who would
give to the Church of Ron-.)e the money and power of the
people of Englsnal. This es the practical design of the
majority of our statesmen;—we pray you to defeat it.
2. We brand it as a design of mischief and of folly,—it
is wrong. .t:o one should teach to others what be thinks
it wrong to do. If it be tight to give up your mind and
conscience to the keeping of a priest, and to take his word
in place of Gad's word, why are you a Protestant ? why
not join the Church of Rome? If you think these things
-wrong., why do you lead others to do this wrong ? why
teach this wrong to the ignorant?
3. But the scheme is as weak as it is wicked. Look
first to England : who amongst our labourers are the most
ignorant and wretched,—uncleanly in their habits, homes,
and rags,—poor in their fare? All who know our towns
will answer, the Irish—the I: 'snail Catholic Irish. They,
by their halsits, degrade .'-e tee .als and the manners, and
lessen the wages of their labearers ; yet they have lived
among us for generations, and they have lived unimproved;
they do not rise to our level,—they sink us to their own.
Why is this? Is there any natural reason? None,—
no people have higher qualities, quicker and more sus-
ceptible minds. Yet they live in the midst of civirzation,
its exception and reproach. What is the reason ? You
cannot get at their minds—their minds are sealed up from
you, from all contact with you—their mind is in thraldom
to the priest ; their passions have no check from the fear
of God, their souls are in bondage to the fear of man.
Mental thraldom, moral abasement, physical wretched-
ness !—this is the law of nature.
4. Look next to Ireland. Every one wishes Ireland to
be peaceful : it is the interest of all that it should ;—why
is it not so? Its people are poor—but why? There is
everything to make them rich ; there, numbers are great,
—not so great as in England, nor growing so fast. But
they have little capital ;—why ? We have too much ; we
could flood Ireland with capital. Why do not our holders
of capital go there ? Because life is unsafe, and property
insecure ; therefore the capitalist stands aloof. You can-
not have the wealth, the arts, the employments of civili-
zation among the disorders of the lawless.
But is this the case throughout all Ireland? Not
among the Protestants; not in a great part of Ulster;
this state of things, then, is confined to the Roman Ca-
tholic Irish alone.
Why are they in this state ? Is their religion the
cause? Take the facts and mark them. No people In
Europe are so governed by their priests. But the Romish
priesthood, torn from all the interests of society, have
one grand passion—the Inst for power, and wealth, as a
means of power ; they live for their church—they seek
for their chtirch universal empire. They can gain domi-
nion as other governments do, only by gaining a hold over
the mind; they govern the minds of men by fables ad-
dressed to their tears,--that is the source of the power of
the priesthood.
But a multitude who believe fables must be ignorant.
Therefore popular ignorance must be maintained. No
people are so ignorant as the Irish Roman Catholics.
Such is the fact ; popular superstition, popular ignorance
—this is the law of the Church of Rome. Popular ig-
norance, popular passion, popular disorders—this is the
law of nature. We may despise this law, we may over-
look it, but it is fixed, and it will stand. A powerful
priesthood, a turbulent people.
5. But they say that this is from the ignorance of the
priests, and they will educate the priests. Educate the
priests! teach the Church of Rome! Go and learn from
her! the ablest government which ever ruled mankind—
the longest and the strongest; which has lived through
all ages, races, and climates—the only one which has
ever sought universal power, and has won it, and holds it
now as firmly as before. But the Irish priests are illiter-
ate—if the State will pay and teach them, they will be-
come learned. The State pays and teaches the priests of
Belgium and of France, and yet the majority of their
priests are grossly illiterate, flow is this? These illi-
terate priests are the soldiers of a great army. We don't
win our battles by ranks of courtiers; it is the rough
plain soldier who does the work and wins the day.
These rude coarse priests are the soldiers of a rude coarse
people, and fitted to move them. But they have their
generals, and if you would know them, they combine the
intellect and the sagacity of the world : the subtle arts of
Italy, the learning of the German, the fervour of Ireland
and of France, the patient power of England. These are
the men who lead them, who work the vast confederacy
and work it well. These are the leaders whose skill baffles
your courts, whose tactics put your diplomacy to shame.
Go and learn from these, the masters of mankind.
6. But would you make them your friends, and govern
Ireland through them ? Many governments have tried
this, all have failed. Will you alone succeed? Has
Holland or Prussia or France? Have you succeeded in
India or Australia, New Zealand or Newfoundland, Ca-
nada or New Brunswick ? What have they done for you
there? Have they made the task of your government
more easy? Ask the British.merchant ; ask your colo-
nial governors.
Your scheme is a folly ; your plan a delusion.
7. But we must have them as our friends on an 7 terms.
Vs'ell, you can have them, but on their own terms,
What are these ? Make your zovernment do their work ;
make the power and wealth of England raise the power
and wealth of the Church of Rome. Then they are your
friends, your fast friends ; but then they are your mas-
ters. Will you take them as such? Wall you, the Eng-
lish people, submit to be their slaves
To pay the priests, unless you are prepared for this, is
a scandal. It is an insult to common underutanding. It
is a folly so notable, that it should be noted, and he who
is guilty of it, and boasts of it as though it were a clever
scheme, deserves to be pilloried, and branded with the
scorn of England !
Signed, by order of the Committee,
RICHARD NUGENT,
Honorary Secretary.
13, Cockspur-street, Oct. 27, 1846.