The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-07-25 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD

presence and sacramental confession, is of course
perfectly proper and liberal ; but the instruction of
Protestant children in the doctrines of the Holy
Scriptures is a practice to be reprehended with all
the vehemence of " Liberal " reprehension!
A word, in conclusion, with respect to this Pro-
testant catechism, which we have carefully gone
through, We must confess that it is not, in all
respects, a compilation which we admire; but we
must also acknowledge that it appears to us almost
necessary under the circumstances in which these
poor Protestant children are placed, and when viewed
by the side of the manuals of Popery in which the
Rornish children, with so many of whom they are
brought into contact, are sedulously drilled. It is
an evil, perhaps, that controversial subjects should
be introduced at all amongst mere children ; but the
greater evil is the necessity—the cons- ant contact
with the insidious teaching of Rome—which re-
quires it as a protection from error.

EDITORIAL CREDULITY.—IS 11-11,; the 19th cen-
tury ? Our almanack tells us that it is ; and yet,
with the following paragraph before us, in the
Liverpool Times of Tuesday last, we might almost
doubt that we lived in any other than the dark ages.
Superstition, in an ignorant peasant located in the
heart of an Irish bog, is natural enough ; but that
anything so gross as is here shewn could have
existed in Liverpool, or that a journalist could have
been found in any corner of England to record it,
and place faith in it, is what we really could not
have believed to be possible. here it is, for the
" liberalism" of Liverpool to contemplate!

" FATHER MATHEW A MIRACLE-WORKER.—Many
persons will willingly admit that the moral revolution which
Father Mathew has wrought in Ireland is, from its cha-
racter and magnitude, more entitled to the appellation of
a miracle than many other things which have been dubbed
with the title. Until yesterday, however, we never heard
that the wonder-working " apostle of temperance" was
gifted with really miraculous powers. Whilst the admi-
nistration of the pledge was going on in the grounds of
St. Anthony's Chapel, it was confidently rumoured that
the respected Father had in the morning restored to a
child, about 14 years of age, the use of its limbs, of which
it had been deprived for several months. The mother of
the boy (so the story went) brought it in her arms to Fa-
ther Mathew, who, after having inquired into the nature
of its ailments, made upon it the sign of the cross, and re-
peated a few words, whereupon its limbs suddenly acquired
their long-lost vigour, and the boy actually walked home !
This story might have been looked upon as the clumsy
invention of some superstitious and ardent admirer of the
Father, anxious to add to his well-earned renown, and as
such it might have been smiled at, had it obtained cre-
dence only amongst the poor and uneducated ; but it was
actually repeated as indubitably true by persons in the
middle class of life; and one individual, who ought not
easily to be deceived and much less lend himself to a de-
ceit, declared that he himself was a witness of the per-
formance of the miracle.

We dare say, after this, that " persons in the mid-
dle class of life," (!) individuals who " ought not
easily to be deceived," and a journalist ready to gulp
down any cock-and-bull story which comes in his
way, will be found, some of these days, to assure
us that the miraculous father has walked on the
sea, converted water into wine, or that his head is
encircled with a crown of glory ; in which latter
case we hope, for the credit of the imposture, that
there will be no prying heretic present to suggest to
the gaping worshippers of the miracle-worker, that
" 'Tis only the sunshine reflected, I judge,
From that big pail of water behind Father Fudge."
By the way, will the Times inform us who is this
" one individual who ought not easily to be de-
ceived," and who witnessed this miracle. His
phrenological developments would be a curious sub-
ject of investigation.