The Sun. — 1840-04-01 (London, England)

THE CATHOLIC MAGAZINE. The only remarkable article in this number—at least the only one which calls for any notice in the columns of a newspaper—is on the " Religious Persecution in Poland," which rages in that unhappy country to an extent hardly credible. A proposal made by a Catholic Missionary for the substitution of the English language for the Latin in the celebration of the Mass, and the other rites and ceremonies of Roman Catholic worship, has led to a correspondence little creditable to the boasted liberality of the Missionaries by whom that very sensible proposal has been opposed. The fallowing extract from the article on religious persecution of the unfortunate Poles, will serve to convey some idea of the atrocities of which that doomed people are now the I victims :  After the Czar Nicholas had destroyed or shut up many churches and seminaries; after he had contrived, by insidious and disgraceful means, to influence the election of parish clergymen, and other spiritual pastors, and thereby to render himself the virtual head of the National Church in Poland, be directed all his violence, all his machinations, against the laity, in order ro force them to embrace the .Russo-Greek religion, and consequently, in order to de. story, with the cherished creed of their ancestors, the strongest link of their nationality,—that nationality which he has sworn to uproot, in futherance of his nefarious designs against liberty and knowledge. The commanders of regiments had express orders, from the Czar, to enter places of worship even during divine service, if they sus pected any rebels, that is, any patriots, to be therein ; the licentious Moscovite soldiery, helped by the Jews, took full advantage of this permission, and generally selected the most solemn part of the service for the signal of their appearance. They seized, then, on the male portion of the congregation, indiscriminately ; and, in some instances, when a show of resistance was offered, massacred the clergyman at the altar, as well as numbers of the people, without distinction of age or sex. These barbarous acts took place in almost every parish of Lithuania, particularly Oszmiany, Kieydany, Blsa,gota, Uzwenta, and \Yornie, in which the Cossaks, by the orders of their sanguinary generals, Kabtukow and Knoring, (men infamous for their cruelties in Lithuania) set fire to the churches during divine service, and left the majority of their inmates a prey to the devouring flames. At Oszmiany, the Cossaks rushed suddenly into the church, and massacred the whole of the congregation, with the officiating clergymen : these barbar2.rians were afterwards seen tearing the car-rings and other ornaments from the persons of the murdered women and children, and exchanging them with the Jews for spirituous liquors. At Bcysagota, the same regiment of Cossaks attacked the church, dragged down the priest from the pulpit, and carried off the congregation to the fields, where they shot the clergyman, and, after having shaved the hoods of the men, sent them, loaded with chains to the frontiers of Persia. in spite of the cries and lamentations of the widows and children of the unhappy prisoners, who were destined to behold no more those dearest objects of their affections.