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against the payment of priests by the state . Priestcraft was dangerous only when thus bribed , and for his part he was as conscientiously opposed to supporting English bishops as Roman ones . As to persecution , what church was it that should throw the first stone ? Let fair play be given to all . Luther said it was right to punish heretics . John Calvin , in a damnable passion , burned Servetus , and Melancthon approved of the deed . Had the Nonconformists torn a page out of history , and forgotten how they
had been treated by the Church of England ? If going over the records of persecution was to be the fashion , let them either agree to put a seal on the book , or else agree to read every page of it . He went on in a masterly style , tearing to rags the flimsy arguments of the speakers in . favour of penal enactments , and wound up by an eloquent appeal to the men of Birmingham , whom he called upon to show themselves foremost in driving back the cry of •« No Popery . "
" They remembered the crowd that mobbed the good Priestley , when hounded on by the persecuting spirit of fanaticism ; and glorious would it be if that town wiped out this blot by recording its vote—as the freest of all free towns of England—in favour of religious liberty . " Several other speakers addressed the meeting , after which the chairman put the amendment , which was lost by a small majority . The original motion was then put , and it was also lost . This was justly considered by the supporters of the amendment as a victory , and was received with tremendous cheering and waving of hats and handkerchiefs .
recent letter to the Bishop of Durham as inconsistent and disreputable ; and we may expect to find him the powerful and unflinching advocate of religious freedom in the House of Commons and elsewhere . — Gateshead Observer .
A numerous meeting of the Protestant clergy of Dublin was held last week , but they wisely agreed to adopt no resolutions till they had ascertained what answer the Queen would give to the anti-Papal deputations . At Harwich , Slough , Stoney Stratford , Jersey , Dartford , and various other places , meetings have also been held , at which strong resolutions of the usual kind have been passed . At Birkenhead preparations were making to hold another public meeting in the Market-square , but the magistrates , having received intimation that the Catholic labourers employed in the docks intended to attend in great strength , refused to lend the assistance of the police to keep order , and stated that they would hold those who called the meeting responsible for any damage which might occur from the holding of it .
A very crowded meeting was held in Surrey Chapel , Blackfriars , on Tuesday evening , the Reverend J . Sherman in the chair . Dr . Stowell , of Cheshunt , remarked , that the Protestant remonstrance was not the mere outbreak of a mob , not the gathering of a political party , not the outbreak of a long-smouldering sense of injustice , but the indignant outburst of a great and generous people who had been taken by surprise by an act of most unwarrantable intrusion . A writer in the Times had asked what Protestants would do ? They would do a great deal . Persecute they would not , but protest they would . ( Cheers . ) They would address her Majesty as a Protestant and
an august monarch , and ask her to protect them against the Popish aggression . ( Cheers . ) It was his belief that Protestant Dissenters did not go far enough in simply objecting to the hierarchy in the Church of England . At all events , if they objected to the established hierarchy , they must , in order to be consistent , oppose the establishment of any new hierarchy . ( Cheers . ) The Reverend Dr . Cumming also addressed the meeting , and suggested " the propriety of an act of Parliament , providing that every bishop or archbishop who assumed temporal jurisdiction in virtne of the Papal bull , should , for the first offence , be lined £ 500 , and , for the second , be transported to Botany Bay . "
The Catholic Duke of Norfolk has addressed a laconic , but pregnant , note to Lord Beaumont : Arundel Castle , Nov . 28 . " My dear Lord , —I so entirely coincide with the opinions in your letter to Lord Zetland , that I must write to you to express my agreement with you . I should think that many must feel , as we do , that ultramontane opinions are totally incompatible with allegiance to our Sovereign , and with our Constitution . 111 am , my dear Lord , faithfully yours , " To the Lord Beaumont . " "Norfolk . The following is a copy of the answer given by the Reverend John Sinclair , Archdeacon of Middlesex , to a letter written by a gentleman in Pimlico on the the subject of the Puseyite practices which prevail in St . Barnabas : —
" Vicarage , Kensington , Dec . 7 , 1850 . » Sir , —In reply to your enquiry , 1 hasten to iniorm you that the Bishop of London intends to direct his archdeacons to visit all the churches and chapels in which the form 3 and ceremonies referred to in his late charge are persisted in . It will be my duty to hold a visitation at St . Barnabas , and I trust that the result will be satisfactory to the public . —I have the honour to be , Sir , your faithful servant , " John Sinclair . "
The Bishop of Llandaff has issued an address to the clergy of his diocese , in reply to an address fiom them , in which he states that the tendency in our Church to Romanizing practices has emboldened the Pope to this step . We have it irom good authority that Mr . Bright , M . P , for Manchester , regards Lord John Russell's
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CARDINAL WISEMAN'S LECTURE . The Archbishop of Westminster delivered a lecture in St . George ' s Roman Catholic Church , South - wark , on Sunday evening , the first of a series of three upon the subject of the new Papal hierarchy . After giving a brief history of the Catholic hierarchy , he proceeded to show , in the following passage , what the amount of difference was between the previous and present position of the Catholic Bishops : — " 1 . Not one of them has received , or will receive , any new consecration . Not one , in other words , will be one atom more a Bishop than he was before .
" 2 . Not one enlarges or alters materially the limits of his ecclesiastical jurisdiction . Some few counties are transferred from the limits of one former district to another , but these are only slight deviations from the principle of merely changing districts into dioceses . " 3 . Not one obtains any encreased power or jurisdiction over clergy or laity , or property , or trusts , or any person or thing . If anything , powers before held are curtailed or limited . " 4 . Not one probably will change his place of residence . " 5 . Not one will gain , by the change , any encrease of emoluments or of income .
" 6 . Not one acquires , or dreams of acquiring , the slightest alteration of social position or legal addition of title or honour . " Each one remains where he was , as he was , and what he was , with the sole change , so far as outward relations go , of the title which he bears . He , for instance , who was Bishop of Hetalonia is Bishop of Birmingham , where he has always lived in honour ; he who was Bishop of Samosata is now of Hexham , and will no doubt continue to live at Darlington , where he has lived respected by all , till now . " He endeavoured in the following passage to throw ridicule upon the great agitation which the Papal bull has produced : —
* ' Suppose that any one had told you , six months ago , that the Bishop of Rome had it in his power to throw this vast empire into convulsions , to upheave , by the breath of his nostrils , ' the granite foundations of the noble British constitution ; to shake to its basis the throne of our gracious Queen , which rests secure upon the affections of every subject ( of none more than of Catholics ) ; to despoil of its rights and prerogatives a Church which has a thousand roots in the very substance of the nation , to imperil the religion of the Bible in all its various diramations , and finally to introduce all that has been a popular bugbear in Popery into your very families ; had any one told you , six months ago , that the Bishop of Rome had power to do all this in England , you would have laughed ; yes , you would have laughed to scorn the man who should have presumed to tell you that he had such tremendous power .
" And if , by way of jest , or through curiosity , you had asked the fanatic who told you so , by what wonderful machinery , by what magical agency he could do all this ; and he had answered you , hy a scrap of paper , wherein he should desire the Catholic districts of England to be thenceforth called dioceses , and the Bishop of Trachis to be called Bishop of Beverley , and the Bishop of Tloa to be called Bishop of Liverpool ; ' you would , I am sure , have considered the man little better than an idiot who asserted or believed in such effects from such a
cause . " And yet , now that this has been done , all those terrible consequences are aeen to have flowed from it : the nation is made to believe that the Pope has possessed and has exercised this tremendous power . But go back to your former cooler judgments , and through them look at the matter now effected , as you would have looked upon it when spoken of as a future , and you will see that it is ridiculous to attribute such mighty results to so simple an act of ecclesiastical jurisdiction . "
In the conclusion of this article he tried to show that the influence of the Pope would be lessened rather than encreased by the change , and in corroboration of this opinion he sa id he had been assured , upon excellent authority , " that , even in 1799 , Pitt suggested to Chancellor Erskine , as one good mode ot diminishing English prejudices in regard to Catholics , that the Bishops should cease to be Vicars Apostolic , and become local titulars . "
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A WARNING TO THE PUSEYITES . The first step in the way of casting Puseyism out of the Church of England has been taken by the Bishop of London . With groat reluctance , no doubt , fieeing what his own tendencies are , he has found himself obliged to give way so far to public opinion as to call upon the Reverend Mr . Bennett to resign the living of St . Paul's , Knightabridge , and the colebrated chapelry of St . Barnabas . A long correspondence between the bishop and the priest appears in the Times of Thursday , from which we learn that , bo earlv as the 7 th of January , 1847 , C . J . London
warned Mr . Bennett that ho was carrying things too far ; " but as Mr . Bennett continued to go on with his " excessive ritualism" without any renewed remonstrances from the bishop , wo may reasonably conclude that the latter was not very much in earnest . In February , 1849 , one of Mr . Bennett s parishioners
complained to the bishop of certain peculiarities in the mode of celebrating divine service , and , in consequence , the latter expressed to Mr . Bennett his disapproval of so much form , " especially of the procession with the elements , and of the choristers receiving the communion before the other communicants . ' " ' At the same time , however , if an incumbent thought proper to adopt those practices , " seeing that he has the rubric in his favour , " he questioned whether he had any authority to prohibit him . This was clearly sanctioning what Lord John Russell would call the Romanizing mummeries of St . Paul ' s . What more natural then than that Mr . Bennett should go a little further in the programme for St . is time
Barnabas . But public attention had by th been directed more sharply to the question , and the Bishop began to deem it his duty to interfere . Finding that a number of " additional novelties" had been added to the performance of divine service at the new chapel , Charles James wrote to Mr . Bennett expressing a fear that he was exciting or encouraging in the members of his congregation " a taste for forms and observances -which would lead them to seek for its fuller gratification in the Church of Rome . ' * [ This is precisely what the Presbyterians and Independents say of the whole ritual of the Church of England . ] The forms of which he complained were the following : —
" Your posture , and that of your curates , in celebrating the holy communion ; the not giving the cup into the hands of the communicants , and the putting the bread into their mouths instead of delivering it into their hands ; the form of words used before the sermon instead of a collect and the Lord ' s Prayer , and the crossing of themselves by the clergy present . " In reply to this remonstrance Mr . Bennett justified the use of all the forms and observances he had
adopted , and declared his determination to resign rather than give them up . The next letter from the Bishop appears to have been on the 16 th of October , in which he tried to convince Mr . Bennett that he was wrong , and that he would have no just cause to resign though he were restrained from going on with his " excessive ritualism . " This had no effect upon the incumbent of St . Paul ' s , who , in a letter dated October 30 , declared himself ready to resign at once , if his lordship would say that such a step would promote the peace and better ordering of the Church . The Bishop replied on the 16 th of November , shortly after the appearance of the Papal Bull , by calling upon Mr . Bennett either to give up the practices complained of or resign . how
This the latter seemed not quite willing to do , - ever . He tried to make terms with the Bishop , by proposing to change everything in the rites and ceremonies , he observed , which was not warranted by the Book of Common Prayer , the canons of the Church , or the practice of the cathedrals . The Bishop would not listen to this . He was now becoming angry with the incumbent of St . Paul ' s . In a letter written on the 27 th of November he deliberately told him that , unless he was prepared to give up all the practices complained of , he would call upon him to fulfil his promise of retiring from his charge . In answer to this Mr . Bennett formally resigned the curacy of St . Paul ' s , which has been accepted by the Bishop . It is said that Mr . Bennett intends to join the Oratorians , but this is a mere rumour .
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SUNDAY OBSERVANCE IN FRANCE . The Ultra-Catholic party in the National Assembly appear to be following in the footsteps of the Agnewites in England . On Monday M . de Montalombcrt brought forward a report of a committee lately appointed relative to the observance of Sunday . He said that the observance of Sunday as a day of rest was a blessing and a duty , and had been shamefully violated in France . The non-observance of that sacred day was a public profession of atheism—a defiance thrown to the Creator . The demoralizing effects of
their neglect of that holy day might be seen in the encreaeed number of cabarets , which amounted to 332 , 000 in France . It was full time to remedy the evil , and to pay some attention to the moral improvement of the labouring classes . M . Montalembert then read the different clauses of the project , by which it is proposed that Sunday observance shall bo regulated . By the first article of the project it is expressly forbidden to execute , on Sundays or holydaysany works paid out of the funds of the treasury ,
, the deparments , or the communes . By subsequent articles masters are forbidden to compel their servants or labourers to work on the Sabbath . An exception is made in favour of the vendors of food , persons employed on the railroads , canals , harbours , &c . The Mayors of Communes under 3000 souls are empowered to order shops to be closed during divine service , and the soldiers of the army and navy are to be allowed two hours to attend some place of worship . No discussion has yet taken place on the question .
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THE OLMUTZ TREATY . This important treaty has at length been made public by the Berlin press , from which it will be seen that the statomenta made relating to it at first have
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Dec . 14 , 1850 , ] &tfe 3 LC&iiet + 891
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 14, 1850, page 891, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1862/page/3/
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