like claim may not by her be put forward and by us be listened to, not from inclination, but from fear?

Let us, then, resist at once-let a firm, universal, and united opposition be shown to this measure. Let Petitions to both Houses of Parliament be poured in, praying that it may not be adopted. Let all who have votes address their representatives, and assure them that they shall consider those who vote for measures to endow Popery, as acting in opposition to their own well-formed views and wishes, and forfeiting their confidence, their votes and interest at the next election. This cannot now be far distant; and to know that those who placed them where they are, and for whom they are placed where they are, will find some one more faithful to the trust reposed in them than they may prove to be, if they vote against their constituents' Petitions, will quicken many to an investigation of the question as one of principle more than party,-may lead them to resist instead of voting for it, and thus may help to save the country from the ruinous step now about to be taken.

It is too, the more important at the present moment to resist strenuously and at once this measure, because Sir R. Peel has declared his intention of bringing in a Bill at a very early date, the object of which will be to prevent any annual discussion upon the subject, by placing the grant upon a permanent basis; so that if the present opportunity be lost, it will be lost for

ever.

For

These, then, are some of the means to the end: Petitions to both Houses of Parliament, and addresses to the Crown,—if the measure should proceed so far,-by letters, memorials, addresses, and deputations, by the various constituencies, individually or collectively, to their respective representatives, urging on them the importance of resisting this measure. let this be borne in mind, that many may otherwise vote for the measure, not caring much either one way or the other; and that those who, steering their course only by expediency, now find it expedient to conciliate the Romish party in Ireland, will, upon the same ground of expediency, find it necessary to conciliate the Protestants of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, if they only arouse to a sense of duty-a determination to perform that duty, and pronounce, without delay, that no increased, no permanent endowment shall be given to the apostate Church of Rome.

We now draw the attention of our readers to the Report of a great public Meeting held on the 18th ult., the first step only in a series of proceedings at once to be adopted, and in which we implore their hearty concurrence and aid, and, above all, their prayers before the throne of grace, that an abundant blessing and success may rest upon them.

101

ENDOWMENT OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC COLLEGE OF MAYNOOTH.

A MEETING was held in the Large Hall, Exeter Hall, on Tuesday, 18th March last, for the purpose of petitioning Parliament against the new endowment of the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth. Amongst those present we observed, Lord Farnham, Sir Culling Eardley Smith, Bart., Hon. and Rev. Baptist Noel, Hon. Colonel W. Stratford, Admiral Hawker, General M'Innes, The Chisholm, G. Finch, Esq., G. R. Clarke, Esq., J. C. Frere, Esq., J. C. Evans, Esq., J. Wood, Esq., Capt. Trotter, Capt. Cotton, Signor Ciocci, Nadir Baxter, Esq., J. Bridges, Esq.; Revds. Dr. Holloway, Dr. Gwynne, R. Montgomery, A. S. Thelwall, T. Cuffe, E. Pizey, W. Chalmers, J. Heming, G. Campbell, C. Prest, E. Bickersteth, J. Blackburn, W. Curling, C. Day, J. Hazlegrave, D. Vawdrey, J. E. Cox, H. Bobbins, Peter Hall, D. Wilson, G. Cubitt, J. Brandram, J. Burnet, T. Stoughton, A. Rogers, A. Burder, W. Carver, Dr. Henderson, J. H. Hinton, T. Griffith, J. S. Stewart, W. M. Bunting, J. Viney, J. Meshley, T. Squance, J. Holgate, H. Fish, J. E. Sabin, J. Redford, O. Clarke, S. A. Dubourg, J. Pocock, J. R. Page, C. A. J. Smith, T. W. Wrench, T. Tate, R. Shutte, J. Irons, R. Parkinson, J. Spence, J. S. Wilkins, J. Sherman, W. Chaol, H. Bevis, E. Mannering, G. Phillips, S. G. Garrard, H. Wharton, W. Gordon, H. B. Jeula, D. Campbell, James Williams, A. Davis, James Smith, G. Wright, J. Lyon, J. C. Miller, J. A. Miller, R. G. Le Maire, H. Killen, and C. Williams.

Shortly after twelve o'clock, J. P. PLUMPTRE, Esq., M. P., having taken the chair, The Rev. Dr. HOLLOWAY offered up prayer to God, that he would keep and preserve them from all discord and disunion, and that in the great work which they had met to accomplish, the hearts of all might be as the heart of one man. Rev. Gentleman concluded with the Lord's Prayer, and was followed by The Rev. J. BLACKBURN, who read the forty-sixth Psalm, the favourite one of Martin Luther.

The

The CHAIRMAN then rose and said,-My Protestant friends, we are assembled together at this time on, as it seems to me, a most important occasion. I should have been very thankful if any one who could have exercised a wider influence in this city and this country could have occupied the chair on the present occasion. It is a post not sought for by me, but one which, being offered to me, and which being called upon to fill, I felt that I should be shrinking from a high and important duty, that I should be turning my back upon a high and important honour, if I refused to take the chair on this occasion. (Cheers.) I rejoice to believe that I am on this occasion surrounded by Protestant Christians of every denomination. (Applause.) And I rejoice to know and to believe, my Protestant fellow-subjects, that ministers and Christians of every Protestant denomination, will have the honour, and as they will feel it to be, their duty to address you. (Hear, hear.) If, as is the case in a world where sin hath made so many rents and sown so much division, we cannot all of us see with the same eye, yet I bless God for the belief that there is a large body of Christians in this Protestant country, who can agree, and who do agree together in this, that there is one book above every book (hear, hear); and that is God's book (hear, hear); and that there is one name above every name, and that that is the name to which we are all looking for our common salvation. (Hear, hear.) This, then, my Christian friends, is the cause of our Meeting, and this is the company and band that are met together on the present occasion, a company and a band of Protestant Christians who love the great truths of the Reformation; nay, I would rather say, who love the truth as it is in Jesus, and who desire and intend, the Lord being their helper, for that truth zealously to contend. (Hear, bear.) You know, my friends, the subject that brings us together. We are bound together in the manner I have described; we are bound together in bonds which, I believe, are commensurate with eternity, and never will be broken. (Hear, hear.) We are called together because at this time those truths which bind us together I may say are threatened; we are called upon as Christians protesting for the truth and against error. We are about to be called upon by the Government of this Christian and Protestant country, to make a considerable increase to that grant which we have been paying with the greatest reluctance for years past. We are called upon to make a liberal increase to that grant.

which is made for the support of that Church which, while we love its members, and pray that they may be led into the way of truth, we believe to be holding serious and fatal errors-we are called upon, I say, to contribute out of the public purse a large and liberal increase, as it is called, to this obnoxious grant. (Hear, hear.) I feel as a Protestant, that my conscience, my highest and holiest feelings, are deeply wounded by this proposition. I not only feel this, but I also feel that it is an insult to my reason and common sense, if it is proposed by this grant to conciliate those who have not been conciliated by any similar measures in times past; and we have reason to believe, that no conciliation will be produced by any such measures in future. We know it is one of the boasts of the Roman Catholic Church, that it is unchanged and unchangeable. We believe that the truth for which we contend is unchanged and unchangeable, and it is for that truth we are now met to contend. May we be stedfast and unmoveable-may we be very zealous, and very jealous for the honour of our Redeemer, and let us be united as one man in the cause we have in hand. There is important counsel given us by the wise man, when he says, "Buy the truth, and sell it not." Is that the counsel of the wise man? nay, it is the command of the infinitely wise God, who made that man wise who spake those words. This has been the language of all who know and love the truth as it is in Jesus; for this our fathers were willing to lay down their lives, and if they could speak to us now, their language would be, Sell it not-if you have the truth, cleave to it with all purpose of heart." I will then call on you in the language of that word which is a light and a lamp unto us in this dark world, to call on the name of the Lord and serve him with one consent. May we act on that principle now, and serve him with one consent, or as it may be rendered, with "one shoulder." I trust, that however we may differ on matters of minor importance, we may agree in putting one shoulder to this wheel, and in a spirit of union, love, and concord, carry forward the work of to-day. It is our duty to do so; I do not doubt, and I think none of you can doubt it. Events are not with us but with Him on high, who doeth as he will with the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth. That it is for us who fear Him and hope in his mercy, when his truth is assailed, to stand up and contend for it and leave the event in his hands, satisfied that the Lord reigneth and will reign, and doeth all things well. I am surrounded by Christian friends of every Protestant denomination, who will be called on to address you. I would say one word to them, and remind them that several Resolutions will be proposed, and I hope they will handle the subjects committed to them with as much brevity as is possible, and which the number of speakers will render necessary. Above all, I trust all will be actuated by a spirit of union and Christian love. (Cheers.)

66

The Honourable and Reverend BAPTIST NOEL then rose to move the first Resolution, and was received with great applause. He said, although the Resolution committed to my care is one of a general nature and principle, I shall make no apology for addressing myself to the object of the Meeting, viz., opposition to an increased grant to Maynooth College. Feeling, as I do, that it is not for clergymen to mix in party politics, if I saw anything in this Meeting intended to embarrass the Government or make a party movement, I should have felt considerable hesitation in appearing to-day. But whatever may be my objections to this grant, and however freely I may express that objection, I feel that no exclusive blame attaches to Her Majesty's Ministers, because they are sustained by some of the most able and enlightened statesmen of all parties. There is a large majority in Parliament combined to support this measure, and no party can be exclusively blamed. I am also alive to the value of conciliating the Roman Catholic community by any measures consistent with sound principle, nor could any Minister deserve the confidence of the country who did not consider that portion of his duty, and who did not make every sacrifice which is possible to bring this country into one harmonious whole, and to induce the Roman Catholics of Ireland to love their country by doing them justice. Whatever some may think of Exeter Hall, that it is such a magazine of fanaticism that it needs but a spark to ignite, and that every Protestant who attends the Meetings there, when he goes forth, is ready to plunge his dagger in the first Catholic he meets, I have no feelings of the sort, and I entered this room and now address you without any bitterness against, or dislike to, my Roman Catholic fellow-subjects. I wish them every kind of real prosperity, and I do

what I do with no feeling or intention of attaching blame to the Roman Catholics for asking for civil and religious equality. Although I may see difficulties in granting such a petition, I yet think it natural and lawful. If I were a Protestant in France, I should make the same request of the Legislature of that country, and therefore I cast no blame on the Roman Catholics of Ireland if they, believing that they hold the truth, should claim at our hands respect and affection. Nor do I grudge them (and in this I may perhaps differ with some whom I see around me, who may entertain shades of opinion in secondary matters) the possession of any secular advantages and civil honours which they have of late years acquired; and I am ready to pronounce the verdict which was pronounced by Mr. Grattan and Mr. Burke on the penal code, enacted against them by our ancestors, which was contrary to the toleration which is taught in the Gospel, and which was not then understood, because the medieval doctrines of the Romish Church, which were taught all over Europe, rendered such a toleration inadmissible. I lift my voice against no secular or civil privileges the Roman Catholics ask for, but I ask your opposition to a grant the effect of which is to endow and sanction the doctrines of the Church of Rome. I here draw a distinction between the encouragement of their secular interests and this sanction of their doctrine. Whatever difference of opinion may exist, every one must at least see this palpable distinction. A person may support a measure to remove the civil disabilities of the Jews, while at the same time he may, on religious grounds, protest against the payment of Jewish rabbies. (Cheers.) The one he may consider a measure which their numbers, wealth, and intelligence may justify, while, by the other, he would be sanctioning doctrines which blaspheme our Lord and Saviour. Apply this rule to the Roman Catholics; there are those who think that the Roman Catholics of Ireland should not be contented unless their civil rights were protected by their possession of a share in the Government of the country through the medium of the elective franchise, or a still further share of the Government by the right to seats in Parliament, and who deem their interests cruelly invaded by the penal laws; who believe that the Gospel does not require the propagation of truth by means of penal laws, or the suppression of personal rights, who yet will with equal conscientiousness refuse to assent to a legislative sanction of their doctrines. To do the Prime Minister justice, he has not put the matter upon this footing; he has not proposed this grant on the ground that it is right to give a legislative sanction to the doctrines of the Romish Church. I will quote his words as reported in the Record newspaper, in his speech in the debate upon the address; he says, "I will frankly state, on the first day of the session, that it is our intention to propose to Parliament a liberal increase of the vote for the College of Maynooth. When, in opposition, I resisted a Motion which was made for the purpose of taking from the College of Maynooth the allowance now annually granted to it, I stated then, that it appeared to me that an engagement was entered into by a Parliament exclusively Protestant to provide domestic education for the ecclesiastics of the Roman Catholic Church. I do not think that engagement was necessarily fulfilled by a mere continuance of that nominal vote. I think the engagement was to supply the want of ecclesiastical education, by the foundation of a College for giving spiritual education in that country. And if the population be increased, or if the means of foreign education be diminished, I think you are but acting in accordance with the originally implied and honourable engagement of the Irish Parliament, if you supply increased means of education for the ecclesiastics of the Romish Church; and I beg to state with equal distinctness, that we do not propose to accompany that increased vote by any regulations in respect to the doctrines or discipline of the Church of Rome that can diminish the grace or favour of the grant." Let me observe, that we have here a statement that it is proposed by the Government to furnish means for the education of the whole priesthood of Ireland, and in proportion to its wants, however enlarged the foundation is to be-that the Roman Catholic community has greatly enlarged since the time of the first grant, and, in pursuance of the engagement, the means of education ought to be enlarged also. The terms, too, on which it is to be granted, are, that there is to be no interference with the doctrines taught (they being purely Roman Catholic), and this is founded on an engagement made by the Irish Parliament to the Roman Catholic prelates and community. Now, if the engagement can be made out, there will be good reason for pausing before refusing to make this grant; but if

it be wholly fictitious (loud cheers), then the Protestant community of this country ought, at the present moment, to unite in protesting against it. Even if the grant be made by virtue of this compact, there must be some other principle to justify the right of Protestant senators to vote the public money in maintenance of Roman Catholic doctrines. A slight reference to the history of the Roman Catholic College will give much instructive information on the nature of this alleged compact. In the first place, I find in a work entitled Views in Ireland, published by a very able Roman Catholic gentleman, Mr. O'Driscoll, with reference to Maynooth, the following observations:- The war had driven the Roman Catholic students from the Continental Colleges, and the Romish Bishops, in consequence, proposed a plan of domestic education for them, and the Government falling in with the proposition, Maynooth was established." This endowment, then, arose from the state of the war with France. The act of the State, therefore, created a mischief for which the State granted an indemnity. In the Life of Pitt, by Mr. Gifford, that gentleman says, "The Government endowed a Popish College, under the pretence of preventing the Papists going abroad for education." Mr. O'Driscoll refers to a past act, Mr. Gifford to a prospective intention of preventing a mischievous education abroad, and Mr. Gladstone, in his work on The Relations of Church and State, says to this effect, "that Maynooth was undertaken under the miserably fallacious notion that the priests, if educated in their own country, would be more imbued with home interests and feelings; but the result had totally failed." These three authorities, then, state that the grant had a specific object in view, and that there was no intimation of its being permanent, still less of its being co-extensive with the wants of the Irish priesthood for the future. On the contrary, the inference is, that if its object was not accomplished the grant was to cease. It was not intended to establish Roman Catholic doctrines, but to prevent a mischievous education abroad; that if it is found that the education at home was more mischievous (loud cheers) the reason for the grant ceases, nor can that be considered permanent the reason for which exists no longer. In referring to the Act of Parliament by which this grant was made, new proofs will be found to show that there was nothing permanent in its character. The 35th Geo. III., which was passed in 1795, made it lawful for a College to be built, and by the 10th section 8,000l. was to be applied to its endowment out of the supplies voted for the service of the year; but there is not one word of a permanent establishment of the grant. In the three following years other sums were voted for the building of the College; but in 1799, there was no grant. (Hear, hear.) In 1800, by the 40th Geo. III., 8,000l. was voted for defraying the expenses of the College of Maynooth for one year. (Cheers.) Who could infer from a grant for one year that it was intended for a hundred? (Loud cheers.) There was no secret stipulation; or if there was one, the country was not pledged by it, for there was only this enactment for a grant for one year. (Cheers.) In the legislation which followed there are clearer proofs that the Government and the House of Commons did not understand that the compact implied the progress and extension of the grant which is now attempted to be secured. In 1807 there was a small increase of the grant, but Mr. Perceval immediately on his accession to office reduced it to its original amount. If Parliament meant the grant to be co-extensive with the wants of the priesthood, having once enlarged it, would they have diminished it again? In 1811 a Motion was made for an increase, but it was resisted, and the grant remained as it was. All this time the wants of the priesthood were increasing. It was not in 1845 that there was a sudden increased want, but there has been a growing want since the day the grant was made, and yet up to this time Parliament has refused to augment the grant; a certain proof that they did not believe the engagement to be coextensive with the wants of Ireland. That this compact to continue the payment of 8,000l., originally granted, has been made out by some of its friends in this manner, has been supposed to attach some force to their argument, that since 8,000l. had been voted for the purposes of the education of the priests, their own resources for education would probably be diminished to that extent; depending, therefore, on the Government to continue what the Government had begun, they might be put in a worse position with respect to education, than if the grant had never been made; and consequently they have some equitable claim on the Government not thus to injure them. This is all that can be alleged; and the country will see in this