adopted in such cases, and on which your friends have usually agreed. They were acted upon in the public discussion at the Roman Catholic College at Downside, in January, 1834, with which circumstance you can hardly be entirely unacquainted. In neither the subject for discussion, therefore, nor the arrangements proposed, do the committee feel that they are at all open to the remarks which you have chosen to make.

"Of the character of the gentleman who proposes to introduce the question, and towards whom you express yourself in such opprobrious terms, the committee feel it quite unnecessary to say any thing, except to express their unanimous feeling that the invitation conveyed in our former letter conferred an honour rather than an insult.

"In conclusion, allow us to call your attention to a degree of inconsistency or obscurity which appears in your remarks on the religious part of the question. At the commencement of your letter you address us as fellow-Christians,' while at its close you designate us as 'anti-Catholics,' and as having no part in the one Lord, one faith, one baptism,' of the Christian or Catholic Church.

"Now, sir, we cannot imagine you to be so ignorant of the meaning of words as not to know that if you rightly address us as 'fellowChristians,' then we cannot be beyond the pale of the Catholic or Universal Church; while, if you really believe us, as the close of your letter seems to intimate, to have no part in that one Lord, one faith, one baptism,' which belongs to all Christians, then your previous appeal to us as fellow-Christians,' cannot escape the charge of insincerity.

"You close by auspicating our return to that one faith which our fathers and your fathers held to God.' It is our hope and confidence that that faith is already possessed by us. Your church, as you are doubtless aware, expresses her faith in four creeds. Three of these are of ancient date; the Apostles' creed, the Nicene, and the Athanasian. All these, which your fathers and our fathers held to God,' the Protestant churches at this present moment cordially accept an maintain. But the Church of Rome has added a further one of more modern date, the creed of Pope Pius IV., promulgated only in the year 1564, the authority of which we entirely deny. It is upon this novelty alone that the difference turns. The faith which your fathers and our fathers held to God' is ours still. May we not, therefore, with more justice and propriety call upon you to give up your modern additions, and to join us in that faith whose antiquity you profess to revere?

"We have the honour to be, &c."

(Signed by the Secretaries.)

154

THIRD MEETING IN EXETER HALL,

ΤΟ EXPOSE THE INIQUITY OF THE ROMISH BISHOPS IN THEIR SECRET AND AUTHORITATIVE CIRCULATION OF THE NOTES OF THE DOUAY BIBLE

AND RHEMISH TESTAMENT IN IRELAND,

Held on Thursday, July 14, 1836.

INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT.

THE interval that elapsed between the date of the second letter in this correspondence, viz., June 20th, and the meeting at Exeter Hall, on the 14th of July, was of considerable importance in this controversy, and tended in its results to throw more light on the iniquity, the conscious iniquity of the Romish bishops, than any other event in the year 1836.

In this interval, it first occurred to the writer of that letter to examine the papal laws, canons, and decretals which were briefed in the eighth volume, that had been published as a supplement to Dens's Theology. The public attention had been so occupied with the work of Dens, and the time of the writer had been so engrossed with the various controversies connected with that work, and the discovery of the Rhemish notes, &c., that it had not occurred to him to examine those authorities which were summarily condensed in this new volume of canon laws, which was stolen, as it were, under cover of Dens into authoritative operation by the Romish bishops. Supposing it to be of importance, but not possessing any of the books referred to in it, he went to look for them in the library of Trinity College.

The investigation of these documents soon convinced him that but a small part of the iniquity of the Popish hierarchy had yet been laid before the public; and he spent much of this interval, as much as his avocations, and the distance of his residence from Dublin, allowed him, in investigating and transcribing some of these papal laws. The Popish bishops could no longer pretend that these were the opinions of an individual, as they affected to call the persecuting tenets of Dens; but they were the canons and decretals which these bishops, by having them

published under their authority, had thus put into force in the country, and to which they and all their beneficed priests, had not only sworn obedience themselves, but sworn to have them obeyed as far as in them lay, by all placed in subjection to that authority. To this important subject the writer directed all his attention; and when Mr. O'Connell's answer of the 29th, to the Protestant Association, which was immediately transmitted to him, announced that he would not stand forward to meet the charges on the Rhemish notes, the writer resolved not to bring forward that subject at the public meeting in London. But as the evidence of the facts connected with those notes was already placed within the reach of Protestants at Glasgow and Edinburgh-as the lateness of the season precluded the hope of a second meeting in London; and as he might not live to bring forward again the evidence which he had to adduce on these papal bulls, he determined that they should form the subject on which he would address the meeting to be convened at Exeter Hall, on the 14th of July. With this determination he left Ireland.

Having arrived in London on Thursday, July 7th, and having still many extracts to make from the papal authorities, he spent the whole of Friday and Saturday in the library of the British Museum; also the early part of Monday, till one o'clock, when he went to meet the committee of the Protestant Association. He then informed the members that it was not his intention to bring forward the case of the Rhemish notes, having documents, which he considered of much greater importance, to lay before the public. The committee expressed at this not only their own disappointment, but that which they apprehended would be felt by all that part of the public who took an interest in the subject. They stated that they had given out in their advertisements that the Rhemish notes were the subject to be brought forward-that the part Mr. O'Connell had acted in reference to them had given them additional interest in the public mind-that if they were not brought forward now, it would give Mr. O'Connell a ground of triumph, and of asserting, that, after he had been challenged, the challenger was afraid to produce the evidence of the case, &c. Under these circumstances, the writer did not feel at liberty to set his judgment in opposition to that of the committee, and notwithstanding he had nearly arranged his documents for another subject, and had only the two next days, Tuesday and Wednesday, the 12th and 13th, to prepare to stand forward alone to occupy the attention of such a meeting as that to be convened at

Exeter Hall, on Thursday the 14th; yet, as he had brought the editions of the Bible with him to London, he felt it his duty to submit to the opinion of the committee; and accordingly promised to bring forward, if it pleased God to permit him, the case of the Rhemish

notes.

This detail may seem unnecessary, but it is of great importance to the subsequent events, for it will serve in the opinion of most reasonable men to account for the writer's total want of time to examine or consider the fictitious bull written by Mr. Todd, of which, supposing it genuine, he read some extracts at the meeting, and as it seems right that the exact detail of the facts should be given under his hand, he states them precisely as follows:

Mr. Todd had, some time before, sent the manuscript to a gentleman in London, a relative of his own, to have printed by Messrs. Rivington, without telling him at the time the nature and object of the work. This gentleman, in a day or two after he had received the manuscript, met a particular friend of his, who is also an intimate friend of the writer, and with whom he resided when in London, and he mentioned to him that he had received from Mr. Todd the translation of, what he himself believed, a remarkable Papal bull which he had just discovered, to have it printed.

There the matter rested. The printing of the pamphlet proceeded, and this gentleman, having himself been soon apprised of its nature, left London for a watering-place, before it had issued from the press, not having again met his friend, or spoken to him on the subject.

In due time, when the pamphlet was printed, this gentleman ordered two copies to be sent to his own house, of which one was for his friend, and the other for the writer, and he wrote to his friend, informing him that he had ordered these copies to be left at his house, where if he pleased to send he might get them; but he did not mention any thing of the real character of the work, probably intendin to let him and the writer find it out, as might naturally happen between friends, but never supposing that by any possibility any misconception or mistake of consequence to the public could arise.

Some days elapsed before the pamphlet was called for; but the writer's friend, supposing that perhaps it might contain something useful for the writer, went with the most kind intention to call for it, on Wednesday, July 13th, the very day before the meeting at Exeter-hall, and brought it home before dinner.

It was just exactly then, as the writer stated in his speech, when he was in the midst of his most anxious occupation, between ten and eleven o'clock that night, before the meeting of Thursday, that his friend, who from the circumstances naturally believed the document genuine, as he had been told so at the first, from authority he could not doubt, came in to the writer to call his attention to this bull; the writer begged him not to interrupt him, he was so busy, and he went away; but having read some more of the bull, again returned, and read a few passages. The writer supposing, from the same authority, that the bull was genuine, knowing well that far worse bulls, with which his own mind had been filled for many days before, had been set up by the Popish bishops the very year that this bull was said to be sent over to Ireland, just took the bull, scored with his pen the passages read, said he would look at it again in the morning, if he had time, and then returned to his work of preparation.

Those who reflect on the long tissue of documentary evidence to be detailed the accuracy necessary when that detail of evidence was against a most vigilant, subtle, and vindictive foe; when such characters as the whole Popish hierarchy and priesthood, with Mr. O'Connell at their head or tail, were to be impeached-who consider the short time allotted to arrange the case, without one individual who either was acquainted with or could assist in the arrangement, and those who can feel something of the responsibility that rested on the person who was to stand forward alone at such a meeting, on such an occasion in Exeter Hall, may, perhaps, make some allowance for the want of thought and time in the examination of a document, which, as it was believed to be genuine from the authority of one who could not be doubted-but to whom not a shadow of blame, under the circumstances, could be imputed so it did not even occur that it was necessary to examine the internal marks of its authenticity. The writer had not his resolutions drawn, and his documents arranged, till two o'clock in the morning; and after breakfast, just before he went to the meeting, he opened the bull, where he had marked it the night before, and put it into a clasp with the documents of the last resolution, saying, that if he had time, perhaps he might refer to it; but the report proves that it was quoted after the documents on which the resolutions were founded, and there was not even an allusion in any resolution to it. Thus, by a train of circumstances, in which no blame can attach to any one except the writer, for using any document on any authority without a