The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1845-05-27 00:00:00

in Ire

1:•-•
tie contrary, that measure, notwith-
securities" (!) with which it was ac-
added fuel to religious animosity in
• •

Insolent pretensions'

,drty who are dissatisfied
of our religion," until they now
no longer care to conceal their determination to
level our Protestant establishment to the ground.
lie teaching of Rome, we are told, is changed.
-nlightened, and no longer promul-
gates idle. fables and blasphemous conceits amongst
her credulous followers. Within what period, we
ask, has:this change taken place ? And for a reply
*e turn to the same authority which we have quoted
above, and who, only twenty years ago, thus ex-
pressed himself:—

But t
e has grows

" When I hear, sir, that the nature of the Roman Ca-
tholic religion is changed, I must say, after a pretty ac-
curate review of what has been passing in Ireland—and I
say it in no unfriendly spirit—that that church would

have consulted its own dignity much better, if it bad
avoided several publications that have lately appeared.
In proof of the little alteration which the spirit of the Ro-

amination of t

nineteenth centnry . ill read a passage from a little w, rk
published by one Coyne, relative to the miracles performed
by Prince Hohenlohe ; and I contend, that so far from
the change which gentlemen speak of, having taken place,

I believe the laugh with which they greeted the mention
of the name of Prince Hohenlohe, would have offended no

hood Of Ireland

sf the number of cures performed

by his highness in the city of Wurtzburgh, was that of
the Princess Matilda Von Schwartzenburgh. She had

been lame from her eighth to her seventeenth y ,
bad vainly expended on medical aid 80,000 florins—but
was cured by the prince's intercession. The Wurtzburgh
doctors, who got the 80,000 florins, must have had a very

y rate, But at Bamberg the
miraculous. Two sisters

who had been confined with lamenes

vied his doctor from the thir
A beneficed clergyman was

even getting

upholsterer, a sac

operated upon I

for te❑ years were

story to. the street

s these, ar

n, had all been

The saddler could

1, without stick or crutch. (A.
ay laugh, if they please,

And two years afterwards the same statesman thus
recapitulated his objection to the concession of po-
litical power to Romanists

" 1 do not quarrel with the religion of the individual
Roman Catholic as a private subject ; but when I see that,
with that religion, as professed by millions, a plan of po-
litical infiuence,—a grand scheme of human and of worldly
policy,—is connected, I have a right to inquire into that

and extent of that influence, and to ascertain, if I can,
what effect it is likely to exercise over the mind of man,
and over society, and what will be its final result.
" Can I doubt, sir, that there is such a scheme en-
grafted on the Roman Catholic faith, and that it is more
for the sake of this scheme than the doctrines that the
religion is so much favoured? I cannot doubt, sir, that

it is the policy of the Roman Catholics to engraft such
a scheme on their faith ; nor can I doubt that that scheme
is calculated and intended to enable man to obtain, ac-
quire, and exercise dominion over the mind of man. Do
I not see, that it confers indulgences, that it claims the
power of confessing people, and granting them absolution ;
and, can I behold these doctrines without feeling, that
the object of inculcating such religious tenets, is not so
much the diffusion of a pure Christian morality, as the
acquiring of worldly power for worldly purposes ?
" 1 say then, sir, that the Roman Catholics are not ex-
cluded merely on account of their belief, for that is a pri-
vate affair of the individuals; that it is not on account of
their religion merely that they are excluded, but with that
religion is connected a vast system of worldly power,
which compels me to think they ought to be excluded
from our councils. When I see it practically interfering
with the political affairs of States—(hear)—that interfer-
ence it is which compels me to enter into a close investi-
gation of the nature and origin of that religious authority
so misapplied. When these dangerous doctrines are sent
out among millions of men, will it be denied, that they
may be used for other purposes, than the diffusion of pure
faith, namely, for the upholding of that spiritual authority
of which some honourable members see only the departed
shade?

" Sir, when I see the Bulls of the Pope—the honourable
gentleman laughs, (some member's smile attracted the
right honourable secretary's attention,) but let him re-
member, that a Pope's Bull is of some importance among
four millions of ignorant people, who have not had the
advantages of an education such as he received. Over
them the Pope's Bull has a practical effect : and let me
tell him, when I see this sort of influence exercised, I
look with suspicion on the power which does it, and I
trace in this act the still-living spirit of that power which
has been said to be defunct and extinct.

" Will it be believed, sir, that in the year 1807, Pope
Pius sent to Ireland, a—l will not call it bull, as the
term may appear offensive to honourable gentlemen from
the sister-country—(a laugh)—but a rescript, a declara-
tion, stating that every Roman Catholic would be en-
titled to a remission of three hundred days' burning in
purgatory, who would repeat, three times, the following
prayer :—" Oh Jesus, Maria, Joseph. to thee I offer my
ardent soul ; oh Jesus, Maria, Toseph, hear my prayer;
oh Jesus, Maria, Joseph, help me at my last hour." A
remission of three I

dred d

peating that address, and this in the year 1807, in the
enlightened nineteenth century ! (Cheering loud and

" But this is mysterious, and may be explained away in
a particular sense, exclaims some honourable member.
Now, sir, though this mysterious exemption from pur-
gatorial flames is monstrous enough, I am still more
disgusted by the attempt to explain or excuse such a doc-
trine, proceeding from rational and educated persons, and
addressed to an ignorant and superstitious population of
millions.

" Sir, I ask any honourable member, when I see suck
a mockery of all religion sent forth, can 1 doubt whether
it has any other object than the promotion of that worldly
policy to which I have alluded. Can I doubt that it is
intended solely to add to the authority of man over man;
which, claiming a power to pardon him, grants the par-
don on such ridiculOus pretences, or withholds it, if the
command is not obeyed. My right honourable friend
may condemn me, perhaps, for ridiculing such supersti-
tious ideas ; but wherever free discussion is allowed,
there no fear that any ridicule will turn the really pious
man from his religion ; and I must think such attempts
are in themselves only worthy of ridicule, though I see
they are only practised with a view of obtaining undue
influence over the ignorant and credulous. These and
other things of the same kind are, perhaps, trifles ; but
they arc, as Lord Bacon says, " like straws thrown up
in the air, they show the direction of the wind," and,
from them, we may learn what is still the spirit of Catho-
licism."

We shall, perhaps, be told by some of our readers
that we are quoting the sentiments of some bigotted
intolerant; and we may be accused of want of
charity in reviving such a description of the princi-
ples of the Roman Catholic Church, and people, of
twenty years ago. To the former objection we re-
ply that the qultations are from the speeches in
parliament of the present prime minister of Great
Britain--SIR ROBERT PEEL ; and, if it is unchari-
table in us to hold up 'to the world the opinions of
such a man, it was more uncharitable in him to
utter them. If they are uncharitable opinions, let
Sir Robert Peel recant them. Let them not remain
"embalmed in the pages of Hansard" without
apology or retractation. They were the correct ex-
position of Sir Robert Peel's impression of the cha-
racter of Romanism at the time when they were
uttered. If they are not correct now, let Sir Robert
Peel shew to the world, for his own consistency's
sake, in what, and when Romanism has changed
her principles,—for their tendency she cannot
change. Let him satisfy the people of England
that he is not at this moment endowing " a great
political system," unchanged in its hostility to the
Protestant establibhment of the Kingdom whose
hierarchy and priesthdod are peaceful as lambs, and
whose masses abjure the miraculous cures of Prince
Hohenlohe, treat Pastorini as an impostor, and Lord
Shrewsbury's estatica as the fabulous creation of
dotage. Let Sir Robert Peel satisfy us of all this.
Let him shew us, above all, that the effect of the
teaching of the present IWaynooth-educated clergy
of Ireland has been to expel superstition and igno-
rance from that country, and to produce enlighten-

pe
and their DT

ce; and we may then speak of them
- iple-s with more tenderness, and al-

most pardon his own scandalous apostacy

the able lecture, upon the effect of want of sana-
tory regulations in producing disease, delivered by
Dr. Grainger on Wednesday . night, must have
driven home conviction upon the subject to the
heart of every individual of his audience, if indeed
any one accustomed to reflect could have gone to
alp meeting unconvinced. We have the causes of
the comparative unhealthiness of Liverpool now
established and recognized—want of pure air, suffi-
cient water, well-ventilated dwellings, and well-
sewered streets and houses. The whole body of
Dr. Grainger's audience tacitly acknowledged the
correctness of his facts and deductiorn '"'
and felt not only the

they saw