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ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Y. Z.; THEOGNIS; Y. S.; S.; A. Y.; CLERICUS SENIOR; VINDEX ; J. J.; F. E. A.; A SUBSCRIBER; J. P.; J. F.; J. B.; W. H. N.; A. R. C.; S. B.; A. G.; AN ATTACHED READER; are under consideration.

We agree with several of our Correspondents that the Toleration Act of 1812, does not sanction Mr. Sergeant Frith's application of it to the meetings of charitable societies. The act has reference only to assemblies convened for religious worship; not to the incidental use of a prayer at any other meeting.

If the Correspondent who asks if we will be the last to recommend the formation of Temperance Societies, had consulted our volumes, he would find that we were probably the first in this country to urge the measure. See our Indexes for the last four years.

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The present Number was printed up to the last leaf by the 15th of the month, on, account of the Appendix. Various Correspondents will hence perceive why their communications and announcements are deferred.

Theognis will find a notice of Pitcairn's Island in our Number for April.

A constant reader forgot to send his name and address with his request. He had, however, better apply to his own bookseller.

SUPPLEMENT TO RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY.

MR. Dudley's letters prove the wide extension and invaluable benefits of local institutions at home, for the circulation of the oracles of God. Abroad we learn with pleasure that Switzerland is becoming saturated with Bibles, and, in numerous instances, free from Apocryphal mixture. The affecting statement respecting the persecutions in India will, we trust, meet the eye of those who will be able and willing to prevent such occurrences in future. Surely Christianity ought not to be the only unprotected religion in the British dominions.

ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER.

The people of Hayti, being free, cultivate, it seems, what they want, and think less of sugar and coffee, for which we, in our patronage of slavery and cart-whips, refuse them a market; for which their good sense or dire necessity they are styled an incorrigibly idle and barbarian rabble. The Reporter successfully defends them against this and other defamatory charges. Even if things were as bad in Hayti as the objectors to freedom aver, the fact would only prove the more forcibly the deeply-rooted evils of the system from which they have escaped. The baneful effects of slavery do not wear out in a day. The newly emancipated Israelites being educated in slavery were, though blessed with Divine laws, sacred institutions, and food from heaven, servile enough to wish in their impatience for the leeks and onions and garlick of Egypt; but Moses did not lead them back to their task-masters, to bitter stripes and interminable labours, as our modern pro-slavery advocates would gladly lead the Haytians if they could only get them to consent to it. But they will strive in vain :. the Haytians, poor half-witted Negroes as they are, are free and contented; they have a code of laws which they consider adapted to their wants; their property is protected; civilization and education are on the advance; and they will not be tempted by the savoury baits of the onions and garlick, modernised into sugar and coffee, to sell themselves back to slavery, or to allow other nations to oppress them into it. We learn from the Reporter, that a "Watchman" is abroad in our own colonies. It had been better for humanity that slavery should have been, as we trust it will yet be, put down promptly and legislatively without the excitements which may attend popular discussion on the subject in a slave colony but as the planters refuse this, they have only themselves to blame if a flame should spread which though they virtually kindled they will not be able to extinguish.

LONDON HIBERNIAN SOCIETY.

Let our readers peruse these interesting Extracts, and then decide whether a society, the labours of which have been so eminently blessed for the best welfare of Ireland ought to languish in debt, especially at a time when its labours are so much required as at present. It has 1352 schools; 76,444 pupils; 67 inspectors and Scripture readers.

The remainder of the appended documents; namely, the abstract of the Report of the Bible Society, the Reformation-Society Extracts, and the truly affecting "statement on the profanation of the Lord's Day," are stitched up with the Appendix, published with the present Number.

APPENDIX

TO THE

CHRISTIAN OBSERVER FOR 1829,

BEING THE TWENTY-NINTH VOLUME.

THE CATHOLIC QUESTION.

WE stated in our Number for April, the impracticability of our giving

even a sketch of the Debates on the Catholic Question in the current Numbers of our work, and our intention of probably devoting to it the whole of our Appendix. A measure of such momentous and permanent consequence we thought ought not to pass by without an adequate record in our pages, were it only to afford our readers and their children the facility of referring back to the Debates in future years, when it may not be convenient to obtain ready access to a voluminous file of old newspapers, or to publications expressly devoted to the subject.

We shall not re-open at present the question of the late measure as a matter of discussion, but simply of history. Whether it was wise and just and Christian and necessary, or quite the contrary, and what have been or may be its results, are not the subject of our present pages. We are not indifferent to these momentous points: very far from it: but our immediate task is simply to record the late parliamentary proceedings, which, whether for good or evil, are of vast, and must be of lasting, importance. May the Lord our God look down and visit the vine which he has planted in these realms! May he shelter it from the attacks of Popery and Infidelity, of false doctrine and superstition, and cause it to bring forth increas ingly the hallowed fruits of pure religion, to his glory, and the spiritual welfare of the nations!

The penal laws against Papists in this country were for a long period very severe. They may be traced back to the accession of Queen Elizabeth, when the Reformed faith was in extreme hazard, Popery possessing great power, and having re

CHRIST. OBSERV. APP.

cently displayed its characteristic virulence in the Marian persecutions. Far from wondering that our Protestant legislature under Queen Elizabeth resorted to measures of defence, we ought rather to admire their Christian forbearance in refraining from retaliation. Had they been inclined to severity, Popery had set them a bitter example.

The two statutes passed in the first year of Elizabeth, usually called the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, were the groundwork of the defensive laws against the Papists. The former act rendered it necessary for persons holding ecclesiastical appointments and offices under the Crown to renounce all foreign spiritual as well as temporal jurisdiction; and made it treasonable, for the third offence, to maintain the supremacy of the bishop of Rome. The provisions of the latter are familiar to most readers, as the act itself is prefixed to the Book of Common Prayer. This act operated as an interdiction of Roman-Catholic worship, though it probably still continued to be practised in secret, notwithstanding

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the penalties of the law which varied according to the offence, from a small fine to imprisonment for life. The act of the fifth of Elizabeth added retrospective force to its provisions; so that all persons in holy orders, or holding a college degree, or concerned in the practice or execution of the laws, was to take the oath of Supremacy under pain of high treason after three months' refusal. The difficulty of tracing home the offence of privately celebrating the services of the Church of Rome led, in the twenty-third of Elizabeth, to a provision that all persons who did not come to the service of the Church of England, unless they heard that service at home, should forfeit twenty pounds per month, or be imprisoned till they conformed. This Act continued the provisions of former Acts, which made it high treason for persons to become reconciled, or to reconcile others, to the Church of Rome. Three years after, all popish priests were ordered to quit the kingdom, on pain of being adjudged traitors; and in the thirtythird year of the queen, popish recusants were confined to particular places of residence, and no subject of her majesty was allowed to harbour any person of whose conformity he was not assured.

It would be most unjust to Queen Elizabeth, and her ministers and parliament, to view these statutes and penalties abstractedly; for at that peried Popery was essentially treason, and to guard against its encroachments was as necessary for the stability of the state as of the church. To acknowledge the pope's supremacy was to maintain that he had a right to dethrone the lawful queen; and there were not wanting a large body of persons well disposed to carry this abominable doctrine into effect. Self-preservation, therefore, independently of all other motives, would of necessity require a considerable degree of coercion, to prevent a recurrence of those fearful evils, civil as well as spiritual, from which the kingdom had just escaped.

It is not our intention, or compa

tible with our limits, to trace the legislative proceedings of the following reigns relative to Popery up to our own times. The four succeeding Stuarts were all averse to the infliction of the existing laws against the Papists, and some of them were Papists themselves. In the reign of Charles the Second, the Papists became involved in the statutes which also opposed the Protestant Dissenters. In particular, they were affected by the Test Act of 1673, which rendered the reception of the sacrament in the Church of England, and the declaration against transubstantiation, preliminary conditions for the enjoyment of temporal offices of trust. Five years after, the last link was riveted by the application of the exclusionary principle to both houses of parliament.

No very material changes took place during the reigns of William and Mary, Anne, or George the First and Second. The Toleration Act was not allowed to shelter Roman Catholics; who still continued proscribed, excluded from offices, subject to severe penalties for exercising the rites of their religion, and to the charge of treason for making converts to their faith. These severe laws were not indeed enforced, but they continued to disgrace the statute book.

In Ireland, the laws were much the same, or rather more severe; a natural consequence of the hazard in which Protestantism had been placed by the formidable machinations of the Papists. No Papist could keep a school, or go abroad for education, or marry with a Protestant holding an estate, or be a guardian to a child, or purchase land, or retain arms, or hold an estate. In case of parents being of different religions, the children might be taken from the Catholic parent to be educated a Protestant; and the eldest son of a Papist, by calling himself a Protestant, might secure all his father's estate to himself, to the exclusion of his brothers and sisters. Religion could not require, justice

could not sanction, policy itself could not ask for enactments like these.

And so at length began to think some wise and good men, who succeeded in procuring a remission of some of these rigours, till at length not only was the statute-book cleared of its heavier penalties, but, reverting to what many among us consider an extreme on the other side, the Roman Catholic has been restored to equal privileges with his Protestant neighbour, and is amenable to the laws only so

DATE.

OBSERVATIONS.

far as he offends against the peace. of society.

We copy the following tabular digest, which appears to have been drawn up with care, of all the proceedings that have taken place in Parliament on the subject of the general laws affecting the RomanCatholics of Great Britain and Ireland, from the period of the first act passed in 1778 to the present time; concluding with a view of the progress of the late Relief Bill through both houses of the legis lature.

1778. Irish Act.-18th Geo. III. cap. 60, repealed so much of the 11th and 12th William III. c. 4, as affected the inheritance or purchase of property by Roman Catholics; as also the clauses authorising the prosecution of priests and Jesuits, and the imprisonment for life of Papists keeping schools.

[In 1779, exactly half a century from the final success of the Catholic Question, Mr. Fox brought the subject forward in the English House of Commons, and it was negatived by a large majority.] 1791. 31st Geo. III. c. 32, prescribed a new declaration and oath in lieu of the oath of supremacy contained in the 1st William and Mary, sec. 1, cap. 8, and 1st Geo. I. sec. 2, cap. 13, and for refusing to take which oath of supremacy, persons had been subject to certain penalties. The same act (31st Geo. III.) also tolerated, under certain regulations, the religious worship of Roman Catholics, and their schools for education. Upon taking the oath prescribed in the new act, Papists were exempted from the penalties of the 1st William and Mary, sec. 1, c. 9, for approaching within ten miles of London; peers were no longer liable to be prosecuted under the 30th Charles II. sec. 2, c. 1, for entering his Majesty's house or presence; Catholics were permitted to practise the law, upon taking the oath; and the double land-tax (in Ireland) imposed on Catholics was removed; and they were relieved from other penalties and disabilities.

[The benefit of this act was extended to the Scotch
Catholics in the year 1793.]

1793. 33d Geo. III. conferred the elective franchise in Ireland,
by repealing the 7th and 8th William III. c. 27, which
disabled from voting at elections all persons refusing
the oath of supremacy; threw open all employments
in the army in Ireland to Catholics, and all offices in
the navy, even that of admiral, on the Irish station.
Three offices in the army alone were excepted-the
commander-in-chief, master-general of the ordnance,
and generals on the staff. The Earl of Westmoreland
was lord lieutenant at the time this important act was
passed, which was done on a recommendation from
the throne.

Motions since the Union.

1805. May 10.-Lord Grenville: motion for committee on Irish petition

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May 13. Mr. Fox: a similar motion 1807. March 5.—Bill brought in by Lord Grenville, to extend so much of the act of 1793 to England, as threw open the army and navy to Roman Catholics. The king opposed to it requires a pledge from Lords Grenville and Grey Parliament dissolved: Lord Grenville's

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June 22.-Mr. Canning: to consider next session
July 1.-Marquis Wellesley: ditto

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1813. Feb. 25.-Mr. Grattan: resolution for committee. After four days' debate, the house divided

...

May 11.-Sir J. C. Hippisley moved for a committee :
opposed as hostile to the bill then in progress.
Division on the motion

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101...213

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68...154 102...174

215...300

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264...224

187...235

Division on Mr. Duigenan's motion, that the bill be read
a third time that day three months

203...245

251...247

147...228

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141...172

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221...245

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May 24-In committee on the bill, the Speaker (having
left the chair) moved that the clause allowing Catholics
to sit in Parliament be omitted

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[Bill then given up by Mr. Ponsonby.] 1815. May 31.-Sir H. Parnell: motion for coinmittee 1816. May 21.-Mr. Grattan: ditto 1817. May 9.-Ditto

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[In this session a bill was introduced by the Liver-
pool administration, and passed, opening the army
and navy to English Catholics. It did not dis-
pense with the oaths of allegiance or supremacy,
but relieved Catholic officers from the penal con-
sequences of omitting to take them by an annual
act of indemnity:1

[New Parliament,]

1819. May 4.-Mr. Grattan: motion for committee

[New Parliament.]

1821. Feb. 28.-Mr. Plunkett: ditto

Bill brought in: division on third reading

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April 16.-Bill moved in Upper House by Lord Do-
noughmore

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1822. April 30.-Mr. Canning: for leave to bring in a bill en-
abling Roman-Catholic peers to sit in Parliament
Bill brought in: division on third reading

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June 22.-Moved in Upper House by Duke of Portland 129...271

1823. April 28.-Mr. Plunkett's motion for a committee; Sir F. Burdett and the Whigs left the House; motion met by a counter-motion for adjournment: division on this amendment

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1824. Divisions on bills to enable Catholics to vote at elections and to act as magistrates

...

[An act passed this session, to permit the Duke of
Norfolk to execute his office of Earl Marshal.]

1825. April 19.-Second reading of Sir F. Burdett's Relief Bill,
with the disfranchising and clergy pensioning wings...
[No division on the third reading]

May 18.-Second reading in Upper House
[New Parliament.]

1827. March 5.-Sir F. Burdett: motion for committee

1828. May 8.-Ditto (three days' debate)

...

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May 16.-Conference with Lords agreed to.
May 19.-Lords appointed to confer on motion of Duke
of Wellington.

June 9.-Marquis of Lansdowne's motion on Commons'
resolution

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137...182

[A bill was introduced this session by Mr. G.
Bankes, and passed, relieving English Catholics
from the double assessment to the land-tax, to
which they had before been subject, on their
not taking the oaths of allegiance and supremacy,
as first enjoined in the statutes against recusancy.]

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