The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-12-03 00:00:00

it will be suddenly, in an instant, as by the fall of a mill-
stone ' her plagues shall come in one day.' We must
-idler come out of bar, or perish with her. Rome, then
has surrendered none of her pretensions, and of this th-
4overnmerit of the nations stand warned : in spirit and
principle she is as vigorous this moment as at any period
of her history—imperious and intolerant. insisting on as-
cendancy and prohibiting freedom of thought and inquiry ;
and she can as little as ever be governed by a sense of ob-
ligation, for that conscience by which subjects should b,
guided in the discharge of their civil duties, is not an
oracle within or a light from heaven, but a decree of the
Popedom ; and, as regards her connexion with secithr
governments, as long as Romig h bishops swear the bishop's
oath, and Rornish priests their assent and consent to the
creed of Pope Pius IV., it is hopeless to expect that en-
gagements or treaties will be kept longer than there is op-
portunity or ability to break them.
" Such is the system from its very nature and constitu-
tion antagonist to the religion of the reformation, or the
truth of the established and united Church of England
and Ireland. Are their claims compatible? Is it pos-
sible to pacify or conciliate popery without the subversion
of protestantism, or the church which establishes and
teaches it in the land ? Will Rome be propitiated by any
other sacrifice ? Will the policy of what is called moderate
protestantism appease or satisfy her ? Moderate protes-
tantism, or the protestantism of expediency, is a contra-
diction. Protestantism, from its very essence, excludes
all neutrality and compromise; it par akes ton much of
the religion of the Great Teacher, who declared, that he
who was not with him was against him, and whose ser-
vice is so exclusive as to know no other master, we must
either hate the one and love the other, or hold to the one
and despise the other.
" Here, then, is on the one hand, an established church,
whose truth the state is bound to defend and propagate;
and, on the other hand, a false, idolatrous, and dangerous
system, which it is, by necessary inference, bound, by
every fair and legitimate means, to discountenance and
weaken. It would be culpable in the state to stand neu-
tral even between two such antagonist systems. What
must be the guilt of aiding and abetting the enemy against
the ally—of supporting and fostering that which is op-
posed to the truth of the established church, as darkness
to light, and especially of patronising and endowing that
college, the nursery of its priesthood, which trains and
educates those who are tile chief agents of its propagation,
the teachers of its blasphemous fahles—the performers of
the horrible sacrilege of the mass."

The concluding portion of the letter, from which
we have taken the liberty of quoting, contains an
appeal to Sir Robert Peel, which with such effect
and eloquently conveys our own sentiments, that
we cannot resist giving it, although we have already
trespassed largely. Would that Sir Robert Peel
was to be persuaded to follow such advice, and save
himself from the utter destruction with which his
character for Protestant fidelity is menaced!

" Sir, what multitudes who admire your matchless
talents would rejoice to see you take this decided stand
for truth and give a tone of resolution to the thousands
who are wavering under the almost uncontrollable influ•
ence of your example. Boldness and faithfulness like
this would raise up for you a host of the best of friends
and supporters, and give you a position as the chief minis-
ter of this great protestant empire, that could never be
shaken ; and you would have the solace and satisfaction
to your conscience in the view of a coming eternity, and
that judgment at which you mint account for your im-
mense responsibilities, that you did not use the opportu-
nities and influence you possessed to the advancement of
a system, opposed to the temporal and spiritual welfare
of your country, and happily through your instrumenta-
lity our national church, threatened as she is by the as-
saults of open foes without, and the treach-ry of false
friends within, may vet emerge from, the trial and the
danger, with her unchangeable doctrine, and her celestial
voice.

" If, however, you have already resolved on a policy
that must only strengthen the hands of her enemies, while
i 7 cannot give stability to your government, and, as has
been proved by past experience, only give them greater
power in enforcing their demands for further advantages ;
for the true meaning of the present outcry in Ireland, is
not the repeal of the union, but the repeal of the reforma-
tion ; then we may tremble for the ark of God, then in-
deed will her enemies have triumphed over her. But I
fervently hope, if you have taken such a resolve, it may
yet be shaken. 0 let it not be record:•d in the page of
history, that in your administration the church waa at
last betrayed by the state : that in the administration of
him who passed the fatal bill that blotted out the great
national protest, was the work of evil irretrievably con-
summated, and, perhaps, by the only man who could have
warded it off, the final blow was given which sealed the
doom and dest:ucti,in of the established church (I speak
of the church as a national establishment, for the invisiole
church is indestructible), but from that period may be
dated her decline and fall, and with the fall of England's
church, the setting of her national glory."

In another part of our paper we give a report of
the proceedings of the Justices of this borough, at a
meeting held in the Wigistrates' Room on Thurs-
day, and the consequent proceedings of the Watch
Committee, at their weekly meeting on Saturday
last, which on that occasion was thrown open to the
reporters for the local press. To both of these we
shall have to call the attention of our readers; and,
as the first in order, we proceed to examine the
proceedings of the worshipful the bench.
The meeting of this body appears to have been
called for the purpose of receiving its sanction of an
irregularity, which we noticed in our last, committed
by Mr. Rushton, an individual magistrate, in direct-
ing Mr. Dowling, the acting head-constable, to ab-
stain from carrying out that portion of the resolu-
tions of the late meeting of the bench, by which he
was ordered to enter those resolutions amongst the
general orders of the police force ; and also for the
purpose of considering the request of the Watch
Committee, to have handed to them a copy of the
depositions taken by the magistrates in the case of
Mr. Parker. Of the propriety of such a meeting
there can be no doubt. The Bench, in their origi-
nal resolutions, had committed an " inadvertency"
—so it is'termed—in directing the performance, by
Mr. Dowling, of an illegal act; and Mr. Rushton
having been guilty of assumption, in volunteering
his individual interference to stay the execution of
such act, took the only course open to him to pro-
cure the sanction to such interference of the collec-
tive body. The necessity of such sanction being
sought for was an admission, on his part, of error in
taking upon himself undue powers, as the fact of his
interference was an acknowledgment of the unad-
vised haste of the proceedings with which he felt
himself compelled to interfere. The application of
the Watch Committee was so much a matter of
course, and so reasonable in itself, that it could
scarcely have been expected to excite discussion.
Under such circumstances, it is painful to find
that a body of gentlemen, such as those composing
the bench of this borough, could not meet on such
an occasion without having to witness the unseemly
explosions of temper which occurred—without wit-
nessing the manifest predisposition of a portion of
their number for a collision with the members of
the Watch Committee, represented there by its
chairman. We are perfectly ready to admit that,
in the explanation of his conduct which Mr. Rush-
ton felt compelled to make, there was much seeming
desire to conciliate, and even to flatter the Watch
Committee upon the tone with which they had met
the views of the justices. But when, in doing so,
he repeated the claim of superior authority over the
police force put forward by the magistrates anti re-
pudiated by the committee—when he claimed a
" pre-eminent right " in the magistrates to issue
orders, amounting to "regulations," directly to the
police force—when, moreover, he imputed to the
committee, as evidenced in the `• skilful drawing"
of Oeir resolutions, a disposition to fence with the
question at issue between the two bodies—he could
not be t:urprised that the chairman of the Watch
Committee should feel himself compelled to lay
fully before the meeting the views of that body
with respect to the whole subject under discussion,
and Mr. Rushton's own proceedings in particular.
We challenge any man to point out in Mr. David
Hodgson's remarks a single instance of unnecessary
asperity, in language or manner, which could call
forth from any gentleman, possessed of that equable
temper which should adorn the judicial bench, the
warmth and violent feeling displayed in reply by
Mr. Rushton. Mr. Hodgson had a perfect right
to condemn the interference of that gentleman with
the execution of the orders of the assembled bench.
It was, to all intents and purposes, such ?n inter-
ference with an officer in the discharge of his duty
as the magistrates had already condemned. It was
a precedent which could not. come from any quarter
with impunity, and which, if it had been set, under
any pretence, by Mr. David Hodgson, in his indi-
vidual capacity as a magistrate, would have drawn
down upon him the severest reprehension of Mr.
Rushton himself ! Mr. Hodgson had also a right
to state his impressions of the influences under
which Mr. Dowling had acted in obeying Mr.
Rushton's dictates—impressions which, although
not borne out by the examination of the Commis-
sioner of Police before the magistrates, have been
fully •borne out, •s warranted, by subsequent in-
quiry before the Watch Committee. There was
nothing, we repeat, in Mr. Hcdgcon's trine and
manner, in laying his opinions before his fellow-
magistrates, which ought to have excited warmth
of feeling, still less unworthy passion and persona-
lities.

We beg to direct the attention of our readers to
the very opposite temper of Mr. Rushton's reply.
We wish we could place before them his infuriated
demeanour. We ask Mr. Rushton himself whether
it wadi is keeping with the magisterial character tv