when viewed in connection with the great power of which you boast in your epistles. It is the Pope's hand, then, that holds the hand that keeps our mohs in order-the hand, a signal from which might bring on or avert that "fearful crisis" from which you claim the merit of having protected us. I intend, however, to make a more direct application of this point; namely to prove by it the correctness of the report of the Carroll Hall Meeting an affair which I mean to keep ever in view, however much I may sometimes seem to be drawn away from it. It may seem to have but little connection with the reflections in which I have just indulged, but I think I can satisfy you, sir, that that connection is closer than you imagine. That report, let it be borne in mind, is the same, word for word, with much the larger portion of the one contained in the Freeman's Journal. What else may be f und in this last, cannot, and does not, at all change the nature of the issue you yourself have made. If the latter report be correct, not a single word has Bennett misstated, or a single fact distorted. If the one "was twisted and turned with perverse ingenuity," so was the other. If it was "such a speech as Bennett put into your mouth," it was also such a speech as the reporter of your own paper professed to receive from your mouth. Here, sir, is the force of my position, and it is one which you cannot overthrow. It is founded upon the peculiar relation of every thing Romish in your diocese to yourself. It would be very unfair to hold a Protestant clergyman responsible for what is said in a Protestant newspaper, whether secular or re igious; but the Romish Eishop of New York cannot make this plea. Were not the fact known otherwise, your own extraordinary claim of power is all the proof we want, to show your absolute control over such organs as the Freeman's Journal-a control certainly no less absolute than that you have claimed over all the ecclesiastical property of your diocese. Will any intelligent person believe that any thing would have appeared in that paper which was supposed offensive to yourself, or any thing that was not th ught to have your fullest approbation! You speak in your second letter of having caused certain articles to be published during the pendency of the late election You caused them to be published. It is the language of one whose wishes were known to be law. But if not inserted originally with your approbation; if you really did not like the attitude in which the reporter for your own paper chose to represent you, how comes it, sir, I ask again, that three years were suffered to elapse, without any disavowal of that report, although you say now that it has been the cause of all the annoyance you have received from that time down? Until some explanation of this mystery is afforded, a very large and respectable portion of the community will continue to believe that in that report you were truly represented,---that all the gems which Bennett and the Freeman's Journal inserted were native gems,---that all its O'Connellism, its repeal elequence, even the cheers and shillelahs, were real parts of a genuine and truthful representation. If, then, your absolution from the charge of priestly interference between contending political parties, and the holding out of corrupt inducements to both, depends upon the proof you have made, that that was a false report, "a burlesque, a caricature, the coinage of Bsunett's own brain, the speech which he had put into your mouth," ---then, I say, you are not absolved. This is your own issue, and I mean to hold you to it. When you can convince the public that the man who boasts that by the circulation of five lines there might have. been produced the most fearful results, and whose single word has averted a crisis from our city---that such a one, I say, could not control, and has not controlled, the management of Romish papers in his own diocese, then will they believe that Bishop Hughes "is no politician;" "that he never organized a political party in New York;" that he never attempted to drive the Bible from our common schools;" and "that he never has, by himself or his acknowledged organs, entered into collusion with political agents." But again, I intend to make a further use of this claim of power. il say, in consequence of your peculiar relation, as Bishop of the diocese , you are responsible for all the violence and intemperance of the organs to which I alluded. He who has had the patience and forbearance to read them, knows what this violence was, and such a one can readily appreciate the mental reservation with which you must have made some of the propositions so solemnly laid down, and to which a negative is so boldly challenged. These organs, let it be borne in mind, are religious papers. Why they are thus styled some one might be curious to ask, who is unacquainted with the direct repugnance which exists between the general style of their contents and all associations connected with any ideas of piety, Still I contend they are religious papers, as the term is generally used. Their end is to maintain and defend a particular religious sect, styled by themselves the Catholic, and by others the Popish. In this point of view, they are as much religious papers as the New York Observer and Christian Intelligencer. Again, I say, these papers do not lose this character because constantly engaged in VOL. II-SIG. 14 the fiercest strifes of politics. This I admit would be the case with a Protestant journal. Let either of the two I have last mentioned exhibit the least symptom of preference toward either of the great political parties of our country, whether this should be the result of inadvertence or design on the part of the editors, and what an alarm is immediately sounded, until an explanation or apology is made--what danger of Church and State is at once seen in such a proceeding. What is it then that leads to such a toleration of the opposite in your favorite organs, as though it was just the thing which might be expected; as though between such religious papers, and the violence and intrigue of political controversy, there was the most natural and perfect congruity? I will not crowd this letter with extracts from these organs, as you have filled columns of your second epistle with elegant quotation s from your present antagonist and quondam admirer, Bennett, altho' hardly a number could be opened without furnishing the most revolting specimens of religious and political intemperance combined. I have no taste for this species of Carroll Hall literature. Their devotional poetry, however, is occasionally of a kind, such as to call for more than an ordinary share of attention. One piece in particular I would present to your inquisitorial and Episcopal, if not editorial notice. It presents such a striking contrast with that overflowing gentleness, meekness, and long-suffering, with which your epistle to our Mayor is filled, and so strongly called to mind that "fearful crisis" to which you have alluded. What think you, sir, of this, from a late Freeman's Journal? "In that high cause they freely bled, Our blood may flow again; It matters little where 'tis shed-- We're waiting now the when." By way of note to this stanza, may I not ask if this signal for which the poet is waiting may not be the withdrawal of that protecting hand of which you boast as being extended over our city? Again-- "And shall these self abusing knaves, This blue law canting crew; These brawling knaves, these native knaves, Your God-like work undo?" Here again, would I ask, by way of note, whether the second line, with its allusion to the rigid morality of the land of the pilgrims, has any connection with an old grudge, which some have ever felt against laws in restraint of priestly concubinage? Again-- Unsullied yet that flag shall wave, That fane unshaken stand, While Freedom wields a two-edge glaive, To curb each bigot brand." A It finds its The two-edge glaive needs neither note nor comment. own most apposite and peculiar illustration in your own significant hints of that "fearful crisis" to which you have given me occasion so often to allude. There are many other topics suggested by the perusal of your two letters, which may perhaps furnish the subjects of another communication; but I feel that this is already of sufficient length. With high respect, &c. WILLIAM L. STONE. NEW YORK, June 5th, 1844. For the Evangelical Guardian. Lines occasioned by the death of a youthful relative, who had com. menced a course of classical study with the hope of becoming a minister of the Gospel. John's dead. A mother's soul is pierced: A father's deep affection sorely wrung; Of manhood's good and glorious career. For he had dreamed---the thought was but a dream Loud as a trumpet, to proclaim to men John's dead; I said. I mean his body's dead. John lives---the soul is John---John lives with God, Thus he was taught; and thus on Christ believed. John lives with God, the God of Abraham, Of Isaac and of Jacob, not the God Of dying beasts, but of immortal men. His soul is with the Spirits of the just Now perfect. Though his body sleeps in dust, For Christ shall come, and with him bring the souls Then in a moment all the dead shall rise: The living shall be changed, that live in Christ. Then John shall live---Oh shall we live with him? |