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Teignmouth, Mr. Serjeant Jackson, Serjeant Lefroy, Sir George Sinclair, Mr. Calcraft, Captain Alsager, Sir Robert Inglis, the Hon. Mr. Maxwell, and others, who may be called justly Christian legislators, men living in the fear of the LORD, seeking direction by prayer, and not ashamed to advocate the Gospel. These men (to whom might till lately be added, and will soon again we hope, Sir Andrew Agnew, Mr. Finch, and Mr. Hardy)—these men constitute a leaven in both houses of parliament, which may, and we hope will, leaven the whole lump; and we know of no body similar to them on the other side.

And then it must not be forgotten, that while by the one party, (the Ministerial) every attempt at legislation to secure the due observance of the Sabbath, and to extend Church accommodation, is ridiculed as well as opposed, while all attacks on Socialism are considered uncalled for, and schemes of Education, unworthy of a Christian state, are sanctioned; the other party, (the Conservative) with few exceptions, support warmly Sabbath bills and Church extension, check Socialism, and oppose infidel schemes of Education. Moreover, from that party, comes the little that is said and done against Popery; and certainly as to our noble civil Constitution, while the Conservatives strenuously uphold, the Whigradicals seem not indisposed, if necessary for their party purposes, to unite at any time in "weighing the anchors of monarchy."

Let us not be deemed uncharitable in thus speaking. In the Ministerial ranks in the House of Lords are eleven Popish peers, and the only Socinians that are to be found in that assembly; in the House of Commons, there are forty-one Papists, and thirtytwo Socinians at least. And if in the Conservative ranks, there are in both houses as we have admitted irreligious men, we know of none without that outward reverence for religion which prevents them giving utterance to effective language concerning it. Not so with those who opposed Sir Andrew Agnew and Mr. Plumptre in their Sabbath bills, and with those who supported the Education scheme of last year; of the former Mr. Roebuck and some more spoke with some indecent irreverence amidst cheers and laughter; and of the latter, Lord Morpeth, Mr. Gibson, and some more, spoke in a tone of the most disgraceful levity. By these things may be discovered the different animus of the two parties in the House of Commons; and in the Lords it may be known by many similar indications.

And then as to the supporters of the two parties out of doors, let it be observed, that nearly the whole of the Clergy-nearly without exception the whole body of religious people in the country, warmly sympathise with the Conservative party; while the whole body of Papists and Socinians and Infidels in the nation, are the most active supporters of the Radicals. Let any man who doubts this, examine for himself his own town; on which

side will he find the really religious people, Churchmen, Wesleyans, and Dissenters, and the most respectable portion of his fellow-townsmen? Surely not siding with the party that rejoices in the aid of the heterogeneous body that now constitutes the Ministerial majority.

Taking these matters into consideration we say, that it is clear that the Conservative party most deserves support, because from its constitution it is more open to proper motives, and is more under the influence of good, and less indebted to bad men. And as this is the case, and as indifference at the present crisis is highly reprehensible, there can we think be very little further doubt on which side support should be bestowed. Give it to the Whigs, and you have no hope or chance of anything but fresh attacks and insults on Protestantism; keep neutral, and you are in fact aiding the Whigs; strengthen the Conservatives and make them feel their obligations to you, and then by your sentiments they must in the end be more or less guided. We say therefore, to our friends throughout the country, droop not, alter not your conduct; go on with your exertions; if you cannot get a sincere Protestant candidate at your election contests, and have a choice only between a Radical and a Conservative, hesitate not one moment. Your franchise is a talent, which, if you do your duty, you must not forbear to exercise; give it without doubt, and with all your influence, against the man who goes into Parliament tied to the car of Popery. Parties are so equally divided that an important question (Education) was decided last year by a majority of Two. What at that time would have been the reflections of any voter who felt that if his vote and exertions had been added, one of that majority might have been rejected, and some one else (perhaps not a sound Protestant, but nearly a Conservative) added to the minority? So if there be such an occurrence of this kind in the next Parliament, let no man, because he is a friend of the Protestant cause, have such a reflection to pain and distress him. The Protestant party is now neither slow nor slack, and might if it united for the purpose of influencing the next elections either by remaining neutral, or throwing its weight into the other scale, do much we must faithfully addmischief. Than such conduct we can imagine no infatuation greater; and we trust we never shall see the day when the Protestant party will be guilty of it. There is no necessity for it, and there would be no justification for it. If a candidate will not vote for the repeal of the Popish Bill, for withdrawing the Maynooth Grant, or generally against Popery, as such, still, he will vote against Infidel Education schemes, for Church Extension, and most probably for a Sabbath bill; and all this he will offer to do while his "liberal" opponent will ground his claims to support on a pledge to vote directly contrary on all these matters, and more

over, will enter Parliament as a supporter of the Ministry, to whom we owe the appropriation clause. With a choice between two such opposing candidates, there can be no doubt-with a choice between two parties represented by such two candidates, no hesitation. These considerations we urge on the attention of our readers, and trust that God will direct them, as words spoken in season, to the hearts of all who have been wavering in their intention; disappointed and disgusted at the unfortunate dereliction of Protestant principles of which too many leading Conservatives have been guilty.

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THE first paper in this series contained an allusion to the piratical foes who under false colours were seeking an entrance to our ports, or already riding there in unquestioned impunity. Among the most dangerous of these perfidious intruders is one now preparing to cast anchor under our very windows, and beyond the range of those protective batteries of which the few guns yet remaining unspiked are pointed too high to touch the shattered vessel, if once she take up the position assigned her by the cunning master-spirit of hostility. We are heedlessly permitting this manœuvre to be executed; and not a few of those who should be the first to board the ship and scatter her pestilent freight on the waves, are making signals of encouragement, while labouring to clear out a space for her moorings. It is not her first approach: she has come nigh, and has been beaten off again by the discerning fidelity of a few, on the ground that some part of her cargo was too notoriously contraband, too obviously fraught with peril, to be admitted: but she now professes to have flung overboard the articles specified by them, and presents herself in most innoxious guise, craving the welcome that we seem prepared to give, with permission to land her goodly bales of merchandize, labelled as they are with the plausible title of "REFORM for the Municipal Corporations of Ireland."

Reform! yes, indeed reformed will all the institutions of the Sister Isle very speedily be, if England yields to the demand. Those packages are filled with such a species of infernal machinery as must, on exploding, drive to the four winds of heaven the vital parts of existing, Protestant institutions, leaving the things themselves to be re-formed of such materials, and after such a model as were in use when the second James accomplished a similar regeneration on the Irish shore, after being baffled by the sturdy Protestantism of England in a previous attempt here. That such results must inevitably follow is a fact

concealed from many an upright Englishman, who would recoil from lending a hand in the nefarious project if he knew the tendency of what he is entreated to promote-entreated too by some who were elected by their confiding countrymen in the west, and commissioned expressly to defend in the British Senate that sacred trust which they are betraying. Perhaps they are themselves deceived: perhaps they are so imbued with the charity which thinketh no evil as to deem it incredible that a vessel commanded by Lord John Russell and piloted by Daniel O'Connell can possibly contain any thing inimical to Conservatism, or subversive of Protestant ascendancy. Perhaps they cannot conceive the existence of such an expediency-loving trait in the character of the so-called leader of the opposition in the Commons' house, as would induce him to avail himself of means to be smoothly wafted into a desired haven on the quarter-deck of a ship where the slightest contamination of Popery was suspected to lurk in the hold. We will suppose all this, and whatsoever else may be alleged in excuse for the mistake committed by these nominally Protestant representatives of a really Protestant constituency; but their delusion in no wise affects the reality of the case, or the certainty that the passing of this act will at once transfer to the most violent of the Popish party in Ireland all municipal power in the corporate towns, and thereby arm them with abundant means to cast down the Church, to repeal the Union, and to deliver all Ireland, a helpless victim, into the hands of Antichrist.

The proof of this rests not with the writer of these fugitive papers: it has been established beyond the reach of contradiction by the simple, luminous statement of Professor Butt, the perusal of which is earnestly pressed on all who desire to become acquainted with the merits of the case-and who among us that feareth the Lord would willingly remain in ignorance of the danger wherein his brethren are placed, when he, as a British subject, might at least raise his voice in averting that danger? There is an awful rebuke addressed to Edom, and recorded, no doubt, for our reproof, correction, and instruction, that we may avoid the sin which it denounces; it runs thus: "In the day that thou stoodest on the other side, in the day that the strangers carried away captive his forces, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem, even thou wast as one of them. But thou shouldest not have looked on the day of thy brother in the day that he became a stranger; neither shouldest thou have rejoiced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction; neither shouldest thou have spoken proudly in the day of distress." And this remonstrance is followed by a fearful warning: "As thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee; thy reward shall return upon thine own head."

Now, as, "To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin," we cannot possibly be guiltless before God if we even passively acquiesce in the cruel spoiling of our brethren which is now about to be effected by this fatal measure; and do not the Protestants of Ireland deserve at our hands so small a kindness as that of making ourselves acquainted with the nature of the peril which impends over them? Have they ever been untrue to us? Has the Crown of England more loyal subjects, the Church of England more zealous fellow-labourers, or the laws of England more devoted upholders than the Protestants of Ireland? They stood in the breach at that momentous crisis when the fugitive and deposed monarch sought again to fling the chain of his popish tyranny over us. To England it was a bloodless revolution: Ireland was saturated with the blood of her best sons, poured forth in the terrible conflict that confirmed and sealed our blessings. Oh let us not ungratefully forget, or unnaturally reject the claims of her menaced Protestantism; but now, ere it be too late, join to avert the evil, which, if it be let loose on our brethren, will speedily pass over again to us in the righteous retribution of a holy God, and overwhelm us in the common ruin.

(For Mr. Butt's Speech, see the end of this Number.)

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF PROTESTANT
ASSOCIATIONS.

(Continued from page 45.)

AFTER losing sight of the Protestant Association of 1779, we do not meet with another until the year 1813, when a Protestant Union was formed under the presidency of Mr. Granville Sharp. But before we notice its operations, it will be useful to observe what advances Popery made in the State during the interval, after the favor shown towards it in 1778, and what further advances it aimed at in 1813.

The stat. 14 G. 3, c. 83, passed before the beginning of the period now under review (A.D. 1774), "for making more effectual provision for the government of the province of Quebec in North America," had introduced the Church of Rome into the ecclesiastical establishment of that important territory, which was ceded by France at the peace of 1763.

In 1791 was passed the stat. 31 G. 3, c. 32, to relieve persons professing the Popish religion from certain penalties and disabilities imposed upon them by several acts of parliament in the reigns of Elizabeth, James I., Charles I. and Charles II., upon their making a declaration that they professed the Roman Catholic religion, and taking and subscribing the oath of allegiance

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