The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-07-08 00:00:00

And petitioners will ever pray, &c

Now,.gentlemen, it is unnecessary for me to recapitulate all
the epithets which have been bestowed on me for the testi-
mony which I have borne against that awful system of which
you are unhappily both the victims and the administrators,
and from which I earnestly hope and pray that God will de-
liver you and the Roman Catholics of Ireland. You cannot
but see that by placing this petition in your hands, so far
as in me lies I place the vindication of your class-books,
your standards of instruction, your conference books, your
archbishop and bishops, and yourselves entirely in your own
power. If I have stated at any time anything, either wilfully
false or unintentionally erroneous, about them, it is now in
your power to impeach my evidence and to prove its false-
hood or its error before the highest tribunal in the country.
If you know it to be false, of course you will be anxious to
do so. If you call on your flocks to sign these petitions, or
any similar petitions better than these that you please to
draw, and if you forward them to Mr. O'Connell to present
to the House of Commons, and tir. O'Connell presents
them, then the people will see that you are honest and sin-
cere in all your denunctations of my friends, Dr. O'Sullivan,
Mr. M`Neile, and myself; and that you know your books,
your college, your conferences, and your confessional, to
be good and holy as you profess to be, and that you use
your best exertions to vindicate them from the charges
made against them. If, on the contrary, instead of call-
ing on your flocks to sign these, you denounce these
petitions, and either publicly or privately endeavour to
prevent the Roman Catholics from signing• them. then
you admit that all the statements on these subjects are true,
and you fully vindicate me from all the imputations of calum-
ny and falsehood, &c. &c., which have been cast on me by
Dr. Murray, by yourselves, and the press. Gentlemen, if
this be so, let me solemnly and affectionately warn the
Roman Catholics of Ireland, that if it is clear that you are
afraid to let your system be exposed before men, it proves
yonr own distrust of the very principles you teach them,
and is a loud appeal to them—at least to investigate those
principles, and to prove them by the word of God, at whose
tribunal they shall soon appear. Aod oh ! gentlemen, let
me conjure you to lay these things to heart. It is not a
question of politics or of party interests, or of the petty
temporal concerns of a nation. What matter is it what
man may think or say on such a subject—what signifies the
opinion of the British parliament ? Sure it is a small thing
to a man that is really a servant of God to be judged of
man's judgment ; but, oh ! if this system is one that you
know in your own consciences cannot bear exposure even to
the eyes of man—oh ! consider how must you appear when
you are summoned to the bar of Him who will bring that
which is spoken in darkness into light—when your immortal
souls must stand upon an issue which you dare not encounter,
even before your fellow worms. May God enlighten and
deliver you and the vast multitudes whom you lead from
Christ to refuges that cannot save, is the sincere prayer of
your friend and servant in the truth,

R. J. WGHEE

A copy of the following letter has been forwarded to Lon-
don, from the Rev. Mr. M•Ghee, addressed to the Lord
Mayor of Dublin. It now remains to be seen what course
Mr. O'Connell will adopt. If he believe the system of
education adopted at Maynooth to be pure and good, as he
has so often asserted—if he be conscious that the professors
of that establishment can come unscathed through such an
inquiry as that sought by the petition—and this he has
boasted over and over again must be the case—then his clear
course is to support its prayer. If he do not take this
course, he gives a practical falsification to all his former
statements, and belies his own assertion of his belief in the
Maynooth course of education :

" TO THE RIGHT HON. DANIEL O'CONNELL, M.P., LORD

MAYOR OF DUBLIN

" My Lord Mayor,—l have the honour of transmitting
herewith copies of two petitions, one to be signed by Pro-
testants, bringinc, certain weighty charges against the college
of Maynooth and the Roman Catholic bishops and priests,
and praying an investigation by parliament to prove those
charges true ; and the other petition, to be signed by Roman
Catholics and all liberal Protestants, denying and denouncing
the charges in the foregoing petition, and praying an investi-
gation by parliament to prove them false.
" Now, in the last debate, on Mr. Colquhoun's motion, as
to Maynooth, I recollect you said you fully believed all that
is taught in that college, and it is unnecessary to quote any
of your letters or speeches to prove the high estimation in
which you hold your bishops and priests.
" Now, hereby, shall you be tested before the Roman Ca-
tholics of Ireland. If you know the statements made in the
Protestant petition, on the subject of the College of May-
nooth, and against your bishops and priests to be true, then
you will cushion this letter or you will affect to despise the
petition, and when the writer or you will have recourse to
some other artifice or finesse to get rid of the subject. But
if you believe these statements to be false, if you believe that
so far from their being substantiated, the innocence of your
bishops, priests, and college would he established by investi-
gation, then you will take this Protestant petition in your
hand into the House of Commons—you will read with indig-
nation the charges that are in it—you will demand of the
house, not as a party question, but as an act of public na-
tional justice, to grant a committee to investigate these
charges, to vindicate these injured men, and, indeed, to jus-
tify themselves in the grant they made to support this insti-
tution. Now, I say, my Lord Mayor, this shall prove whe-
ther you are honest in your professions to the Roman Catho-
lics of Ireland, or whether you are leagued with your bishops
and priests to enslave and oppress them. You shall bear
Your part in this, my Lord Mayor. You shall justify, as far
as in your lies, these charges by your silence—or else you
shall endeavour to disprove them by a bold straight-forward
appeal to the nation. This is what I call ' JUSTICE FOR
IRELAND.'-1 have the honour to be, my Lord Mayor, a
faithful sincere friend to the best interests of the Roman
Catholics of Ireland. " R. J. M`GHEE."

who has alwaynsearerslidsEediti; jaamsmesallliceortaogoed,
BEATH OF A M
,aatgedBo
Chadderton, Butler-green, years
died on the 16 of °ldharn, and who was never married,
any other trade or
May last ; and although he never followed
weaver, he has left occupation than that of a cotton haudloom
property to the amount of nearly £2,000.
Upwards of £6OO is
1:onr money, out at interest, the rest is freehold property.
only had one pair of upwards of 40 years past he had
weeks previous to clogs,his d and one suit of clothes. A few
ath' he requested that his old
clogs and clothing bemight
with him, which has been dopnut into his coffin and interred
and appointed two old womene. He made his will in 1837,
and a man, upwards of 40 yearsio'efarlY 80
years of age each,
has ordered that £2O per annum be
ageex as his executors. 11 e
and stockings, to be given to childre fromnded in calico, clogs,
of the name of Heywood, who 2 to 12 years of
age, reside in the Township
of Chadderton. One of the old women, who is
principal executrix. bad resided with himuppo!nted as
pri upwards of 27
years ; she was never married, and is to have 3s. per week
and a cottage during her life. The rest of the pro ert '
P yis
to be put out to interest for 121 years, and then to be gi •
ven
to the next heir then alive, and in case there are no relations
at that time, the interest of the money is to be expended
annually in calico, clogs, and stockings, and to be given to
all old maids and bachelors who are upwards of 60 years of
age each, and residents in Chadderton.