The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1845-12-16 00:00:00

TOUNG IRELAND'S CELTIC SHIRT. I
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE NO SECURITY
(From the Falcon Family, in Chapman and Hall's AGAINST RELIGIOUS ERROR.
(From the John Bull.)
Monthly Series.) I
To what extent may.we consider general education as a
Mac Morris now opened the parcel which had been laid sufficient protection from religious error, either in the way
on the table, and the eye of Vincent wig' mmediately of removing it. er of preventing it ? This is an important
caught by an object of a violent yellow colour. , subject for-inquiry at the present moment, but its corn-
" Curtains, 1 presume, for your state apartments." ne plete investigation would demand more space than we
remarked ; " the colour is too bright, I should say.". . could assign to it, even had we the ability to conduct it in
" Curtains !" growled Shane ; " they're not curtains ,' the comprehensive way we have suggested. We will,
and as he spoke, he unfolded at full length one of the I
I however, throw out a few general hints ; and before doing
pieces receding from the table for a space of several yards, I so, shall direct the attention of our readers to the follow-
but Vincent, although he saw that the material was linen,
, ing brief quotation from a letter on the present move-
and that the labour of the needle had been in requisition, ment in Germany, which is full of serious admonition :
was unable to form the remotest idea what such an enor- „The whole thing took Germany by surprise. Such
mous enpan se of yellow stuff could be. Shane was exa-
an event as the pilgrimage to Treves was altogether out
mining the object minutely, and with manifest anxiety, as of harmony with all previous impressions. Had any one
if he bad his doubts of its answering its purpose, what- been bold enough to predict beforehand, that it could
ever that purpose was. have taken place in the nineteenth century, and in en-
" What is it, Shane,.if it's not a curtain?" inquired his lightened educated Germany, he would have been laughed
brother. to scorn, as ignorant of his age, and regarded as strangely
" A shirt, to be sure ; did you never see a shirt ?" ' , insensible to the advancement of the human mind. Its
" A shirt ! that a shirt !—a yellow shirt ! Explain. actual occurrence was a rude, unwelcome, stunning fact.
" It's not yellow--it's saffron." It dispersed, at once a thousand illusions; it threw the
"Saffron ! but a saffron shirt! 'What is it for?" most painful doubts over long-cherished hopes as to the
"What are shirts for?—'faith, Vincent, I think we
progress of society in intelligence and virtue; and it stri-
must be after putting you up in airnest." kingly illustrated the unchanged tendency of Rornanism
" But shirts of that size and colour! You are not the
to degrade, and to subjugate to itself, every faculty of the
Colossus of Rhodes; a set of shirts might be made out of
soul. Germany might well stand in speechless confusion
one of those, and every shirt would support a commission to witness her children, after twenty-five years of general
of lunacy—a yellow shirt ! who ever wore shirts of that
education, in thousands and tens of thousands, on their
colour?" knees before a senseless garment—itself a blasphemous
" Your ancestors and mine, then, Vincent. Did you
imposture—and to hear them cry out, in the noble Ger-
ever hear of one Harry the Eighth, and a law he made on
man language, "Holy Coat 1 Pray for us."
the subject of shirts ?" There are those who, looking at the events of the last
" I did," replied Vincent, lowering his voice and throw-
few years, are seriously apprehensive that Popery, with all
ing himself back resignedly in his chair, " I did ; I was
its multifarious superstitions, and persecuting cruelties,
dull, but now I remember all about it," and be sat mu-
will. ere long, once more obtain ascendancy in this coun-
sing in profound silence for a minute or two, twirling his
try. 'When they have expressed these apprehensions, the
thumbs, and gazing fixedly at his brother, while the latter
answer has been " impossible—look at the extent of edn-
was occupied tolding up his prodigious garment, and re- cation—look at the progress of knowledge among all
placing it in the parcel. Vincent then said gravely, re- classes. Popery can never again chain the mind in Eng-
garding Shane with a calm, steady eye, " You dont't mean
, land ; the people are too enlightened." It is to be feared,
to appear in public with a shirt like that on your back ?' however, that what is called general education constitutes
" By this hand that was never christened, but I do I but a feeble barrier against the insidious teaching and the
though !" replied the magnanimious Shane, " and what's insinuating errors of Popery. The highest literary attain-
more. I'll be the first man in Ireland tomount it; my ments, the most distinguished scholarship that can adorn
mantle is not made, or by this hand, I'dappear to-mor- the first university in the world, may consist with a de-
row morning in the full-dress of my forefathers." plorable deficiency of sound religious principles, or firm-
" Take care, Shane, that the mantle does not conceal ness and honesty to carry out those principles. They
too much of the shirt, and take care too, that your hat may consist, too, with the glaring inconsistency of pub-
does not prevent the public from recognising in that fo-
licly promoting the cause of Popery, though declared to
rest of hair over your temples, the glories of the ancient be idolatry.
glybbe. You see I know something about the Celtic toi- All these anomalies may consist, we say, in one and the
let."* same person. Of this we have a living proof in Sir Ro-
" Wait till you see it complete ; stay in town a day or bert Peel. In the absence of political character and con-
or two longer and I'll astound you. I'll have the yellow- duct, founded upon, and regulated by, the religious doe-
est shirt, the biggest mantle, and the bravest glybbe in trine and discipline of the Church of England—of which
the party." the right bon. baronet is a professed member—in the ab-
" No, Shane," said Vincent, now speaking with ani- sence of political integrity towards those friends who
mation and severity, while at the same time he rose to re- placed him in his present position—in the advocacy of he-
tire, " I shall not stay in Dublin, or in Ireland, to wit- terogeneous and conflicting systems of religion—of what
ness the frenzy and the shame of the head of our ancient value is his scholastic pre-eminence, except as a monitory
family. Again, I thank God, your son is not here to wit- beacon of the insufficiency of knowledge, apart from
ness your extravagance, and be ruined by your example. sound religious principles, and salutary fear of Him by
No, before you make day hideous with your gallowglass's whom Kings reign? The pages of English history,
shirt, your wood-kern's cloak, and that horse-boy's rug scarcely, perhaps, record an instance more striking than
on your forehead. I shall be as far from the theatre of that of our Premier, to meet this question with the an-
your antic tricks as wave and steam can bear me. I shall swer—" of no value at all."
not remain to see white linen exploded along with corn- if we descend to those of a lower grade, but yet possess-
mon sense, and a country which stands more in need of ing some advantages of theological study, of what value,
sage counsels and, temperate direction than any other in as a preservative from Romish errors, has education been
the world, distracted and misguided by presuming boy- to the Wards, the N-wmans, and the many converts to
hood and ridiculous dotage." Rornanism at Oxford? In short, the general education
The shirt conta ned thirty ells of yard-wide linen, ac- which is received in our public and private schools, and in
cording to Moryson The statute of Henry VIII. not our universities, forms no certain safeguard from gross
only prohibited the use of the saffron dye, but restricted , religious errors, because, as too many of us now perceive
the quantity of stuff to seven yards. Campion tells us and lament, it is accompanied by only a scant measure of
hat in his time the Celtic gentlemen were beginning to religious instruction on the " doctrine and sacraments,
and the discipline, of Christ, as this church and realm
hath received the same." Hence it is that young men,
entering upon the sacred and awfully responsible office of
the Christian ministry, have had (if they were desirous of
instructing ' the congregations committed to their charge')
to begin with studying what they ought to have known
from their childhood—the first principles of the Christian
religion as contained in God's holy word, and as syste-
matically arranged and clearly defined, in the services,
creeds, and articles of their church. Hence, too, the end-
less and conflicting varieties of dogmata and systems,
within the church ; some, by their teaching and example,
romanising her; others, dissenterising her; and all this,

*Spencer with his barbarous English notions has left a vivid
ascription of what he calls the three Scythian abuses" o the
tate of

glybbe, the mantle, and tl
lrela❑d."

saffron shirt. See

THE DUBE OF WELLINGTON.--It is the moral influence
of the Duke of Wcllington, and the position in the coun-
try which his treat services have secured for him, that
render him so ;nfluential a speaker in the House of Lords.
It is felt that his speeches are not merely made for a party
purpose, but that they embody the experience of a life.
His sincerity and the reliance you have on his sagacity

and that choice of language

which are es

the church

To the same cause, general, but defective, education
may be ascribed all that we see and hear, ignorantly writ-
ten, or ignorantly spoken, upon the subject of edleation,

both within and without the wall,: of parliament. Each
has his educational nostrum; but from all the nostrums
that religion is excluded, which sets before man the rela-
tion between him and his Creator, and which inculcates
the duties resulting from that relation, as well as his aw-

ful responsibility in the great day of final reckoning

that, whether we view
sands" in "enlightene

" thousands and tens of thou-
ld educated Germany

shipping an old garment (" holy vest" it is called by some
of our semi-Popish priests in the English church), or the
educated premier and statesmen of Great Britain, or the
educated Wards, Newmans, Oakeleys, Wingfields, Dal-
gairns, et id genus omne, we have but the same melan-
choly proof of how little connection there is between high
scholastic attainments and soundness of religious pi inci-
ples with the formation of a consistent, not to say honest,
character.

Turn we to England. and what do we behold ? Her
thousands and tens of thousands prostrating themselves
before the godless expediency of the day—self-bound to
the ever revolving wheel of political expediency. With
what strange indifference, or rather, infatuation, do they
behold the foolish and fatal experiments which are b ing
made—chiefly in Ireland—for Ireland is the arena of our
experimentalists in the constitution of this great country.
Parents and guardians, too, with the almost moral cer-
tainty that their sons and wards, if sent to Oxford, will
have their minds perverted to Romanism by the wily ma-
chinations of those " who lie in wait to deceive"—the
Wards at Rose Hill, the Newmans at Littlemore—with a
host of minor recruiting serjeants for Dr. Wiseman and
the vatican—yet send thither. But, seeing that the Bishop
has the power of expelling from his diocese any unlicensed
clergyman ; seeing that by the canon law he can punish
any clergyman who lays aside his clerical vocation—how
is it, we ask, that renegade, apostate proselytising priests
are allowed to lurk in and about the University of Ox-
ford ? Surely the apathy of these our times may be ac-
counted among the most ominous signs of a coming cri-
sis.

most sc

To the supp,rters of the measure for endowing the Po-
pish College of Maynooth, and of that for establishing
" a gigantic scheme of godless education in Ireland," who
justified their support of these measures on the ground
that general education would discourage Popery and pro-
mote Protestantism, the extract from the letter on the
movement in Germany can hardly fail, we think, to read
a useful lesson.

YOUNG IRELAND'S NOTION OF A
GRIEVANCE.
(From the Falcon Family, in Chapman and Hall's
Monthly Series.)
Amyrald O'Harpe