against their wicked machinations. He would ask them to look to the oaths that the Roman Catholic members of the house of commons took before they became legislators. They swore solemnly, to the utmost of their power to support and uphold the settlement of property in these realms-the Protestant Church and government—and never by word or deed attempt, in any way, to weaken the Protestant faith as established in these realms. (Hear.) This, too, they swore and declared they were prepared to do in the plain and ordinary sense of the words, without any mental reservation whatever. (Hear, hear.) He (Mr. Barker) would say, that when they contrasted this oath with the conduct of members of parliament of late years, it was the bounden duty of every well-wisher to his country's institutions, to join heart and hand in their defence, and to overthrow the pernicious effects of such principles as they endeavoured to promulgate. (Cheers.) The Chairman then put the resolution relative to the formation of the committee, which was carried unanimously.

The Rev. T. Tattershall then came forward and said that he did so with feelings of peculiar gratification. It was a resolution that he hoped needed not to be seconded by any single individual before it passed unanimously; it would, he was sure, be seconded by thousands of individuals. He wished to propose a vote of thanks to C. S. Parker, Esq., the worthy chairman. (Cheers.)

The Chairman rose and said, that he thanked them sincerely for the kindness they had shown towards him, not only for the manner in which they had received the mention of his name, but for the indulgence they had given him by their support. The attention they had paid to the proceedings of the day had rendered his situation almost a sinecure. The meeting which had commenced with prayer he should wish to terminate in thanksgiving.

"Praise God from whom all blessings flow," was then sung with sublime effect, by the whole of the assembly, and the meeting separated.

On the 14th of November the following letter was addressed to Dr. Murray, in the columns of the Evening Mail:

"RHEMISH NOTES AND ROMISH BISHOPS.

"To Dr. Murray, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin. "SIR-The notice which I felt it my duty to take of your letter to your elergy, at the public meeting at Hereford, does not preclude the necessity of some additional remarks on that subject, and the best mode of calling the public attention to it, appears

to be that of direct appeal to yourself. I shall first refer to the edition of M‹Namara's Bible, printed in 1818.

There are more than three hundred Roman Catholics in the city of Dublin, whose names are witnesses against you on this important point; they subscribed to that book under the express sanction of your authority-of the authority of your then primate, Dr. O'Reilly-of your predecessor, to whom you were then coadjutor, Dr. Troyof your friend and brother bishop, Dr. Murphy of Cork, who is alive at this day, whose clergy superintended the publication of the book, and under that of eight other Roman Catholic bishops-twelve of you in all.

"They subscribed to it under the firm persuasion that it was (as it professed to be in the advertisement on the covers) the church's interpretation, and their sure and infallible guide in bringing them to eternal life. They trusted to their bishops and their Bible, and now, after it has been allowed to hold this high place and authority for eighteen years, in your own diocese, and your own city, by yourself and your own priests, among the flocks to whom you profess to minister-after it has been boasted of in the magazine that is sold in your own episcopal book-shop, among the editions printed and circulated by the Romish hierarchy-you come forward and declare in the face of your diocese that you never knew any thing of it-nor saw a copy of ittill one morning in last February, when this "fanatic meeting in Scotland" (as you are pleased to term it) brought it under your notice, and then you sent out and bought it.

Now, sir, allow me to ask on what principle you compliment the activity and vigilance of your priests, these beloved fellow-labourers' of yours? They have allowed an interpretation of the Scriptures to be set up as infallible for eighteen years, not only in your own diocese and city, but in every street around you, for I see subscribers' names in Dorset-street, Mary-street, Marlborough-street, Moore-street, Mecklenburgh-street, Mabbot-street, Britain-street, Summer-hill, &c. &c.; and while the poor unfortunate men who subscribed for themselves and their families to this infallible interpretation, have been resting on these notes as even of higher authority than God's Word, and looking to them as coming from you and the rest of their prelates, as the organs of their church; those priests who have been ministering among them, allowed them, if your denial be true, to be blinded and deceived by this mockery of infallible authority, while they neither denounced the delusion to the people, nor exposed the imposition to you.

"Were these beloved fellow-labourers' not acquainted with the fact? Where was the fitness of such men to minister among the people?

"Were they acquainted with the fact, and concealed it from you? Where was the fidelity of these beloved fellow-labourers' to their bishop? Surely, the person who brings to a man's knowledge the false and fraudulent use of his name and his authority, is more his friend than those who conceal it from him; then, on your own confession, you ought to call me your beloved fellow-labourer,' instead of your priests, for they left your name and the names of all your brethren dishonoured and degraded by the supposed sanction of these atrocious and assassinating doctrines of infallible pretension, for eighteen years, which you had sworn before the parliamentary committee were not circulated under the authority of any priest in Ireland-while I, your true friend and fellow-labourer, brought the fact to your knowledge last February, when you sent out the very morning you heard it, and bought a copy, you recollect, and found it all quite true-you really ought to thank me for this favour.

"But let me ask, on behalf of my Roman Catholic friends and neighbours, if the people of the metropolis of Ireland can be misled for eighteen long years by a supposed infallibility with such a diocesan and such a priesthood as you and your beloved fellow-labourers in the midst of them, what has the real infallibility been doing all this time? Has it been asleep? or presiding as the genius of elections? or assisting in the Scripture Lessons of the Board of Education? or adjusting the canon law in the appendix to Dens? or collecting the rent for O'Connell? Was it regulating the passive resistance to tithes? or framing the municipal corporation bill? or had it paid a visit to the Vatican, and perhaps you went to Rome to bring it back? Where could it have been, or how could it have been occupied? For not only has it been for such an immense period permitting the honoured names of the bishops and priests

to be so abused, and its own place usurped by a mock infallibility which taught doctrines so abhorrent from the meek and pious charity of your letter and your genuine sentiments; but when this vile mock infallibility was detected when its daring and fraudulent patronage of this M.Namara's Bible, and its imposture on the whole kingdom of Ireland, not only in distant parts, but even (horresco referens) at your very door, and on every side around you, was brought to light. It was not the true and genuine infallibility that stood forth and dragged into view and exposed it. Nay, it was not even a friend and votary of the genuine infallibility. But it was-O! tell it not in Gath-a wretch who is infamous, ipso jure, excommunicated, forbidden Christian burial, justly condemned (when a convenient time offers) to exile, confiscation, imprisonment, and death-a heretic-and that, too, as you declare yourself, at a fanatic meeting in Scotland.'

Condense the fact, as you yourself confess it, into a short compass. The Roman Catholics, not only of Ireland in general, but more than three hundred of them in your own diocese, city, and immediate vicinity, have been for eighteen years utterly deluded and befooled by the assurance that they had got an infallible interpretation of God's Holy Word under your name and patronage, and that of all your hierarchy. You, in the innocence of your heart, know nothing of this-suspect nothing about it swear that there is no such interpretation in the land under the patronage of any of you your beloved fellow-labourers all know nothing about it—or if they do, they tell you nothing about it. You and they allow the Roman Catholic population to be deluded by it, whether through ignorance or intention. Many Roman Catholics die in the persuasion of the infallibility of this interpretation. They have trusted in it, acted on it as such, and then, at last, they are undeceived. You are obliged to confess before them all that they have been deluded, and that you and they are indebted for the detection of the cheat to a heretic's speech at a fanatic meeting in Scotland!

"If we are to give any credit to your utter denial that you knew any thing about this book, then we have these monstrous propositions to believe

"That a vast body of intelligent persons have been receiving and believing for eighteen years certain doctrines, printed in quarto volumes, of vast importance, professing to be the infallible interpretation of God's Word, said to be sanctioned and patronised by their own living instructors, with whom they were in continual habits of intercourse and communication on this very subject too, and whose names, as patrons, were printed along with their own, as subscribers, in these books; but these books and these doctrines have been totally unknown to these instructors-they never saw nor heard of them-the subscribers, their own flock, never mentioned them to them, and, so far are these doctrines from being sanctioned and patronized by these instructors, that they are directly contrary to their principles—so much so, that, in the act of denying these books, the chief of these instructors quotes two passages of Scripture to prove his spirit of charity and toleration; while the infallible comment on these two passages turned those identical passages into instruments of persecution and murder in the books which he denies.

"These are some of the moral phenomena which we are called on to believe, if we believe your denial.

"And if this complicated tissue of impossibilities forbids us to believe your denial, then you and your priests, these beloved fellow-labourers' of yours in the city and diocese of Dublin, and your brother bishops, and their beloved fellow-labourers, the teachers and scholars of Dens throughout Ireland, have been giving to the poor deluded population, who look up to you as oracles for eighteen years, a book as the infallible truth of God, of which you have called that God to witness, in the face of the men who have received it at your hands, that you never saw or heard before-it contains principles which, while you secretly hold and propagate, you dare not publicly acknowledge.

"Now, sir, the Roman Catholics of Ireland are not fools; they will think, they will reason, and they will communicate with each other. I shall not insult their common sense by attempting to declaim on those facts. If facts do not speak to men, all declamation must be vain.

"But, sir, recollect that without at present farther noticing the epithets you have bestowed on Mr. O'Sullivan and me, we will give you your choice of any resolutions

ever passed by us at any public meeting. We will take those identical resolutions, and meet any men you will venture to appoint to dispute their truth, and, in the strength of God, we will undertake to pass them again on any platform in the precincts of Great Britain. Hoping, sir, before that awful hour which you anticipate, in your letter, with such apparent solemnity, shall arrive, when you and your fellow-labourers shall be summoned to the bar of God, that you and they may be given repentance to the acknowledgment of His truth, and delivered from that awful system of false and hoepless refuges for the sinner's soul, which the Church of Rome sets forth, and brought to the salvation which is proclaimed in the Gospel which you so awfully pervert and deny,

“I remain, sir, a faithful friend to the best interests of my Roman Catholic countrymen,

"R. J. McGhee."

After the anniversary at Hereford, the address from the Protestant Association, which the committee had been requested in the resolution passed at the meeting to prepare, (see page 430,) was sent over by a deputation to Dublin, consisting of Messrs. Yapp and Griffiths-the former, Honorary Secretary to the Association, and the latter, a member of the Committee. The following was the address :—

Address of the Members of the Protestant Association, and of the undersigned Protestants of all denominations, of the county and city of Hereford, to the Roman Catholic Laity of Ireland.

"DEAR ROMAN CATHOLIC FRIENDS AND FELLOW-SUBJECTS,-Being fully convinced that the religion taught in the holy word of God is inconsistent with the indulgence of evil passions towards our fellow-men, and that therefore when religion is made a pretext for doing wrong, it is a proof that such religion itself cannot be right; and being moreover satisfied that the right way of convincing men of error, and leading them into truth, is not by the power of the sword, nor by compulsion of any kind, but by faithful and honest exposure of that error, and a plain and direct appeal to their understanding and conscience: we therefore, in the spirit, we trust, which cannot offend or wound your feelings, appeal to you as men of understanding, of candour, and sincerity, on the following facts:

"It has been laid before the inhabitants of this county and city of Hereford, at public meetings held in our Shire-hall, and in reports of those meetings published in our journals, and circulated in tracts amongst us

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1st. That a standard of theology has been adopted by your bishops, twenty-eight years ago, as the best extant for the guidance of your priests, which contains the most intolerant and persecuting doctrines against your Protestant fellow-subjects.

2ndly. That this book has been adopted within these last six years, namely, since 1831, as the conference book for the priests of the province of Leinster-that it has been reprinted in 1832-that in their conferences your bishops and priests have actually discussed the laws of your church against heretics, denouncing them to confiscation, exile, imprisonment, and death, whenever an expedient opportunity should present itself for inflicting these penalties upon them. The actual documents, the questions from your priests' directories, and the answers from your standard theology, have been read at the public meetings in our city, and extracts from them printed and distributed among us,-moreover we are informed that copies of the directories

containing these questions have been actually lodged by Mr. O'Connell in the House of Commons.

3rdly. That an edition of the Bible with notes has been published, first in 1816, afterwards in 1818, in which doctrines and principles of the most intolerant, persecuting, and antichristian description are inculcated, and that these have been circulated among you as avowedly under the patronage and direction of your archbishops, bishops, and priests, as the interpretation of your church, and as the sure and infallible guide in leading you to everlasting life.

<< The books have been produced at our late public meeting-the lists of your names as subscribers, with your archbishops, bishops, and priests, have been produced, so as to place the fact beyond contradiction.

4thly. That an additional volume was appended to Dens's Theology in the edition of 1832, which contains letters, bulls, definitions, and decisions of your popes, and an epitome of the canonical and moral doctrine of Benedict XIV. carefully selected from his bulls, constitutions, and other theological works; and that this has been added with the sanction and approbation of His Grace the most reverend Dr. Murray.'

5thly. That Dr. Murray in his evidence before the House of Commons has declared it to be the fixed doctrine of your church, that any bull of the pope which is published, and not dissented from by the bishops, becomes thereby an infallible decree and rule of faith to which every Catholic is bound to submit; and if this be true with respect to all decrees and bulls from which your bishops do not dissent, it must undoubtedly be so with respect to those which they select and publish.

6thly. That the principles of canon law so laid bown in this book, published four years ago, and so stated to be of infallible obligation on your consciences, appear to be of a description so awful, so entirely derived from the darkest ages of despotism and persecution, as to be utterly intolerable to any free and enlightened, or even civilized people, and we earnestly call your attention to them.

"7thly. It is laid down that any layman impeding the execution of the mandates, citations, and other provisions of the Roman court, is smitten with excommunication reserved for the Roman Pontiff, and so are they who afford aid, advice, or favour to those who impede it.' Regulars and ecclesiastics incur ipso facto suspension, as well from the exercise of their orders as their offices, both which censures are reserved for the Roman Pontiff'-but notaries or scribes refusing to execute the public instruments of these provisions and executions at the instance of the party, are deprived of the office of notary, and declared infamous-by which law it appears that your liberties as subjects of the king of England, are invaded by another power, and your obedience to the laws of this realm, and your allegiance to your king, entirely superseded by foreign and arbitrary despotism.

This

"8thly. It is laid down in this canon law that a criminal when interrogated in a criminal cause, is bound to confess the truth,' which is ratified by a bull. principle has an obvious tendency to subvert the very essence of British liberty, denies that the criminal is to be presumed to be innocent until he is proved to be guilty-substitutes the rack, which must extort confession of his crime, for the glorious privileges of the British constitution-and brings on you and all who could submit to such despotism, the domination of a tyranny which is worse than death.

"9thly. Accordingly, in this volume, it appears that not only the principle but the fact of the torture is established-it is laid down that a criminal, more especially a heretic, is to be dragged even from a church by the inquisitor, with the authority of the bishop, and that when proofs sufficient to put him to the torture can be had, he is to be delivered over to the secular power-in confirmation of which one of the worst bulls of the 14th century is revived, containing doctrines of persecution and extermination of heretics.

"10thly. It is laid down that the bishop is bound to exterminate heretics from his diocese, and that he is not to interfere with the inquisitor who is authorised for the same purpose, and this is ratified by a reference to one of the decisions of pope Benedict XIV. in which the third canon of the Lateran Council is revived, which is the darkest decree of unqualified exterminating persecution, that is extant in the