The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-07-24 00:00:00

over the mol, he addresses. But the importance of the
blockhead. consists in the loudness of the shouts and yells
which, luckily for him, drown the nonsense he utters.
He appears a great man when borne on the greasy shoul-
ders of human beasts ; but see him in the House of
Commons, in the presence of his superiors, and you be-
hold a very different animal—one who is totally diSre-
garded there—who is hardly tolerated, and whose efforts
to instruct the house are silenced by cries of " Question!"
and bursts of laughter. What idea can the ladies of
England form of W'AKLEY, the surgeon, WHALLEY, the
mad doctor, ROEBUCK, the Canadian agent, GULLEY, the
prize-tighter, old JOE FIELDEN, of Oldham, I3isH, the
lottery-man, WooD, commonly called Alderman WOOD,
and some fifty other equally bright stars ? But some of
the Scotch and Irish members, the joints of the tail in
particular, are indescribable curiosities, of whom the eye
and ear alone can aid in conveying an idea. To be ap-
preciated they must be seen and heard.

With respect to Liverpool we conceive it would be at-
tended by the most salutary effects if a committee of
ladies were appointed sessionally and sent to London to
see Mr. WILLIAM EWART in contrast With Lord SAN DON.

If the wives or daughters of those who support the for-
mer were sent on this interesting mission, we know what
would be the consequences. The fifth time in four short
years never could occur.

Exposed as our national establishment is in the. present
day to the reiterated attacks of a host of enemies, who
have confederated together for the unhallowed purpose
of detracting from her usefulness, diminishing her salu-
tary influence, or effecting her entire demolition, it
becomes the imperative duty of every one who is con-
scious that she is a scriptural church, of every one who
appreciates her as an instrument of good, to raise his
voice in her defence, and to repel the insidious attempts
of those who wish to make her overthrow the stepping
stone to civil anarchy and universal spoliation. Let us
no longer be deterred from the performance of this duty
by the preposterous taunts of our antagonists, who accuse
us of employing the senseless cries of "the church in
danger," and "no popery." To be any longer ashamed
of such truly sensible cries is an instance of moral cower
dice the most reprehensible in its nature, and the most
disastrous in its consequences. Can we behold the
nominal protestant, in league with the avowed infidel,
unblushingly endeavouring to suppress the church in
eight hundred and sixty parishes of Ireland—to deprive
its members of their ministers—to expose them to pro-
scription and death; while the infuriated papists are
gloating in savage exultation over their intenied vic-
tims ? Can we behold the laws of our christian land, and

the precepts of common humanity, daily, and with impu-
nity, outraged in the persons of our Irish brethren, with-
out an acknowledgment of danger the most imminent—
without an expression of sympathy the most cordial and
loudly demanded ? Nor let us

" Lay the flattering, unction to our souls," •
that the progress of this spiritual vandalism will be
arrested by the sacrifice of so large a proportion of the
Irish church. This is only an experiment—a bold and
reckless one it is true—put into operation in order to
ascertain whether its future annihilation be practicable.

Let us not foolishly persuade ourselves that the blow
now aimed at the Irish church will not be followed by a
similar attack upon the church of England.

It is somewhat curious to observe that while Lord
MORPETII and his friends profess to entertain a sincere
desire to promote the real interests of the Irish church,
and strenuously argue that the -measure of spoliation
Which they endeavour to foist upon the British parlia-
ment will tend to accomplish that end ;—while they avow,
as their sole object, the .ultimate preservation of the
church ;—while they zealously disclaim all hostility,
either to its members or its constitution ; the infidel and
the papist make their boast in the face of day that this
measure is only a step towards it 4 final and inevitable
extinction. The Whig party assert that they have intro-
duced this measure from an honest anxiety to strengthen
and establish the church ❑pon a firmer -foundation: the
ultra-radical and papist -sectiont undisguisedly avow, as
their motive for acceding to,. the, ministeri44l Oat), that it
will infallibly secure the speedy downfall of the whole
fabric. How can we reconcile this inconsistency ? -Which
is the more candid declaration?

The friends of the Irish church have pertinaciously and
consistently maintained that the existence of any surplus
revenue would be found perfectly incompatible with the
due and decent maintenance of the proteStant clergy,
and an adequate provision for the spiritual wants of the
community. And how do the Whigs contrive to realise
that surplus, to the appropriation of which they hive

pledged themselves, and. on the performance of which
pledge theircontinuance in power depends? We answer
—by the partial abrogation of protestantism—by offering
a premium upon the decimation of churchmen—by con-
signing over to the bondage of the Jesuit-priests of Rome
those portions of Ireland in which a reformed ministry
is most emphatically necessary—by affording to the un-
principled demagogues, who have so long distracted the
peace of the kingdom, fresh facilities for effecting the dis-
memberment of the empire !
Let the people of England be made to understand that

he plundering attack which is meditated against the

Irish church is based upon falsehood as well as cruelly,
and we shall soon witness a burst of popular indignation
which will shiver the scheme to atoms, and hurl the au-

thors from their high places—which they flagrantly dis-
honour—into the lowest abyss of infamy. We do not
hesitate to affirm, that the report of the commissioners
appointed for investigating the religious statistics of Ire-
land affords intrinsic evidence of a desire to misrepre-
sent facts, where they at all militate against the precon-
ceived opinions of those who originated the inquiry. The
task of procuring returns seems to have been undertaken
with a solemn determination to magnify popery at the
expense of protestanism ;—to sacrifice the persecuted
friends of order, who form the only bond of union between
that country and England, to the insatiate gorge of the
"demon of discord," who could, with one flourish of his
tail, prostrate the Whigs in the mire of ignoble discomfi-
ture.

The following is the analysis of the report, which ex-
hibits, in gross numbers, the relative proportion which
the catholics.and protestants respectively bear to each

other :

Members of the established church
Roman Catholics
Presbyterians
Other protestant dissenters 21,808

As we do not find any prima facie evidence that the
methodists are included ia the estimated" number of
churchmen, it is reasonable to suppose that they are

ranked among the 21,804 other protestant dissenters,
which are given above as the complement of the popula-
tion. But how many members arc there in connexion
with the Irish methodists? In round figures the last re-
turn was 25,000. These are the members exclusively.

If we take the menzbers at the proportion of one half of
the congregations we shall obtain this result—that there
are 50,000 adults in Ireland who attend public worship in
the methodist chapels ; and this will be found, we appre-
hend, from the minutes of the approaching conference, to
be understated. And let it further be borne in mind, that
as the census of the commissioners includes children, vie
must augment the number of methodists to 100,000! In-
dependently, howeVer, of the preceding calculation, the
other classes of dissenters, that is, the congregationalists,
independents, baptists, separatists, &c., have been esti-
matedat 54,000; and as this return would only be con-,
stituted of the adults attending their places of worship,
the total number must be reckoned at 108,000 ! Taking
these items together, we have a dissenting population of
208,000! Any one who will take the trouble to investi-.
gate the subject dispassionately will find this estimate a
near approximation to the truth. How very false—
how utterly deceitful, must be the paltry twenty-one
thousand allowed by the report ! It, therefore, the com-
missioners can have truckled so far to the popish priests.
and demagogues as to depreciate the numbers of.
the protestant dissenters—whom it might have served
their purposes to have magnified, in order to render the
numerical proportion of churchmen still more inSig-
' niticant—what must be supposed' to have•been the line o