Moved by the Rev. THOMAS GUTHRIE, of St. John's Free Church, Edinburgh; seconded by the Hon. and Rev. BAPTIST W. NOEL; supported by the Rev. GEORGE OSBORNE, of Manchester :

Resolved, That whilst earnestly deprecating the measure proposed by Her Majesty's Government, and all measures founded on similar principles, or having the like bearing, this Meeting strongly disclaims all feelings of hostility to the Roman Catholics of Ireland, and expresses its deep and lively interest in all that relates to the religious and temporal welfare of that important portion of our country, and that an Address to the people of Ireland, founded on this Resolution, be forthwith prepared by the Committee now sitting in London, and circulated at their discretion.

It was never adopted, and has been placed in our hands by a friend, for the benefit of our readers. The arguments are powerful against any contemplated endowment of the Romish priests in Ireland.

"DEAR FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN,-The position in which we have been placed by the permanent endowment of the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth, and the line of conduct which, as British Protestants, we have conscientiously been compelled to pursue, in opposition to that measure, make it incumbent upon us to address you, in order to explain, with all possible distinctness and faithfulness, the motives and principles by which we are actuated. We feel that this explanation is due to you; it is due also to ourselves. Most of all, it is due to the sacred reverence which we owe to that God whom we serve, and to that religion which we profess.

"That religion is a religion of love and charity. That God, who loved us, and gave his Son to be the propitiation for our sins, has commanded us each one to love his neighbour as himself, and, as we have opportunity, to do good unto all men. Our desire is, to act, in all respects, in conformity with the spirit of that religion which we profess, and with the precepts of that written Word which we acknowledge as the only unerring standard both of doctrine and duty, both of faith and practice. As our religion thus teaches us love and good-will to men, so our patriotic feelings, which Christianity does not extinguish, but sanction, direct, and purify,-lead us to regard, with feelings of peculiar affection, those who are our fellow-countrymenowing loyalty to the same Sovereign, subjection to the same laws, and partaking of the blessings of the same constitution. And when we look back on the long series of years during which Great Britain and Ireland have been providentially linked together for good or evil-engaged in the same conflicts, fighting the same battles, and, more especially, during the eventful struggle which marked the end of the last and the beginning of the present century; enduring the same hardships and dangers, and sharing the joy and honour which were connected with the many victories, and the final triumph of the British arms,—when we consider all these circumstances, we cannot but feel · peculiar attachment to those who endured with us the brunt of the battle and the difficulties of the conflict, on the one hand, and partook of the honour and benefit of the victory and triumph on the other.

"In addressing all the inhabitants of Ireland, therefore, we desire, first of all, to impress upon your minds, and gladly would we impress

it upon your hearts, that we consider you to be one people with ourselves; and nothing would give us more satisfaction than to be assured that you were partakers of the same prosperity and blessings with ourselves, and that the equal protection and benefits of the British constitution and laws were extended to, and could be alike enjoyed by, all the inhabitants of every portion of these islands. In particular, we should rejoice in the temporal prosperity of Ireland. Every measure that could tend to the promotion of your agriculture and your commerce; to the social improvement of your country, and the comfort of its population, would be hailed by us with delight, and would have our cordial approbation. We may appeal to facts, that when the piercing cry of temporal distress was heard from the distant parts of Ireland, it was at once responded to, and British liberality contributed speedily and freely to supply the wants of our distressed and famishing fellow-countrymen in the west of Ireland. And, as our contributions then testified that we did regard and feel for Irishmen as, indeed, our fellow-countrymen, who had the strongest claims upon our sympathy, so we have, in our petitions to Parliament, solemnly and anxiously disclaimed all personal, political, or national ill-will to the Roman Catholics of Ireland. It is their earnest desire to cultivate feelings of affection towards that numerous portion of their fellow-countrymen, and to be united with them by the bonds of patriotism and of loyalty; they sympathize with the people of Ireland in the physical depression of its peasantry, and would rejoice in any just and wise measure for the amelioration of their condition; and they approve of equitable, kindly, and indulgent treatment of the Irish people, both by the Executive Government and the Legislature; and they solemnly assure you that had ten times the sum now asked been required to relieve your temporal necessities, such a demand would have met with no opposition whatsoever from the members of this Conference. We should have rejoiced if thereby any real benefit could have been conferred upon you. "But we cannot consider the endowment of Maynooth as any real benefit whatsoever to any portion of the population of Ireland. Our conviction is, that it would be injurious to you all.

"In speaking upon this subject, however, we perceive at once that we can no longer speak of the people of Ireland as one body. We are compelled to distinguish between the Protestants and the Roman Catholics.

"Our Protestant brethren in Ireland we regard as a very important portion of the Irish people. The profession of a common faith unites us with them in bonds of peculiar sympathy and affection, over and above the ties which bind us to you all as our fellow-countrymen. And, Protestants of Ireland, you will not need many words to assure you that we feel for you, and love you; nor yet to convince you that our resistance to the endowment of Maynooth results from no national prejudice, from no feeling of illiberality or unkindness. You fully understand that our opposition to this Bill arises from deep conscientious conviction and religious principle. Nor can we for one moment doubt your readiness to unite with us in using every means to convey this assurance to our Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen in Ireland. "But it is more especially to the members of the Church of Rome

that we are called upon to address ourselves, because it is by them more especially that we are in danger of being misunderstood. Yet we trust that our views and principles may be so stated, as not only to be intelligible to that portion of our countrymen, but also so as to commend themselves, and the course they lead us to pursue, to their judgments and consciences.

"To you, then, our Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen in Ireland, we now turn. We are earnestly and stedfastly opposing, by all lawful means, the endowment of a college for the education of your priesthood. This may seem to be placing ourselves in an hostile attitude towards you. Let us, therefore, state plainly the principles on which we act, beseeching your candid consideration of our state

ment.

"We are Protestants. The name which we bear proclaims, that we not only renounce, but protest against the Church of Rome. We will not use stronger language than is absolutely necessary; we will not enter into controversy, which here would be out of place; but, taking the twelve articles which we find appended to the Nicene Creed in the Creed of Pope Pius IV., as giving not only a clear and concise, but also an authoritative summary of the distinguishing doctrines of your Church. We are compelled to say, that we conscientiously believe those doctrines to be decidedly opposed to the infallible Word of God, and dangerous and destructive to the souls of men. The evident design of the proposed enlargement and establishment of the College of Maynooth is, to train up priests in increasing numbers for the avowed purpose of teaching those doctrines to you, and of propagating them, to the utmost of their power, in every part of the world. call upon a Protestant people to endow and support such a College is, therefore, nothing less than to call upon them to teach and propagate, -indirectly, but most effectually,-doctrines which they believe to be false, anti-scriptural, and most injurious to mankind.

To

"Can you wonder that we earnestly protest against being made thus virtually the teachers and propagators of that which we believe to be a false and soul-destroying doctrine? Would you yourselves willingly contribute to the education of Protestant ministers, whose office and constant employment would be to disseminate what you call heresy ? You would, we are sure, protest against it, and oppose it by every means in your power. What can you, then, expect of honest and conscientious Protestants, but that they should use all lawful means, and exercise every constitutional privilege which they possess, in earnestly and stedfastly opposing that which, as they believe, would involve them in the awful guilt of teaching and propagating falsehood? We have notified to Parliament, and we declare to you that the Protestant population of Great Britain, without distinction of sect or party, feel conscientious objections to the endowment of the Roman Catholic religion by the State, a policy of which the endowment of Maynooth College can only be a commencement, and which gives Parliamentary and national sanction to the lamentable errors of that religion; that, as Protestants, they object to that measure and policy, not from any feelings of asperity or bigotry, but from a solemn and religious conviction that they cannot, without offending against Divine truth, consent

to be thus made partakers in the teaching and spread of Roman Catholic doctrine.

"But we particularly entreat you to consider that, while conscience forbids us to sin against God, by aiding to teach what we believe to be false and anti-scriptural, love to your souls constrains us to adopt the very same course, which is demanded by our regard to God and his truth. We believe that the peculiar doctrines of the Church of Rome are most dangerous to your soul's eternal welfare. We cannot, we dare not, consent, to give you that which we believe to be spiritual poison,—which darkens and denies the glorious Gospel of the blessed God, and robs your soul of that present comfort and that scriptural hope of eternal salvation, which the Gospel of Christ, in its purity, is able to impart.

"Our joy would be to bring you to the knowledge of that Gospel, and to the enjoyment of every spiritual blessing which we ourselves partake, and of all those temporal blessings which pure religion brings in its train. Nothing would be more delightful to us than that you and we should be made one fold under one Shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord. For that we long for that we pray. And O, that we could persuade you to read and search for yourselves the Scriptures of eternal truth!—those Scriptures which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

:

"But if you will not accept from us the bread of life, do not ask us to give you that which we believe and know to be poison to the soul. If

you will have teachers trained up to teach you what we believe to be soul-destroying errors, we cannot interfere, we do not wish to interfere, between your consciences and God. But, while we desire to respect your consciences, let us also respect our own. And our consciences assure us, that we should neither be faithful to our God, nor truly kind and charitable to you, if we consented, by national endowment, sanction, and support, to teach you that which would turn away your eyes from Christ, the only all-sufficient Saviour, the only Mediator between God and man, and lead you to substitute the sacrifice of the mass for that one offering by which he has perfected for ever those that are sanctified, and the intercession of saints and angels for that of an all-prevailing advocate, who is even now at the right hand of God, and who is able to save unto the uttermost all that come unto God by Him, seeing that he ever liveth to make intercession for them.

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Finally, we commend this statement of our conscientious views to your calm and candid consideration, and our earnest prayer is, that God may communicate to you, individually and collectively, every temporal and spiritual blessing, and make your lovely land once more, -what it was called before the Church of Rome had any dominion there,the island of saints !""

THE DEATH OF POPE GREGORY XVI.

THE death of Pope Gregory XVI. devolves upon us a painful and unpleasant duty. We intend not so much to speak of the man as the system of which he was the head. De mortuis nil nisi bonum, is a maxim to which we are, at all times, willing to subscribe; and in what

we are about to write, though we may state that which to Protestants may appear revolting, we shall not, we believe, outrage the feelings of Roman Catholics by going beyond what they esteem the duties of a holy and devout Roman Pontiff. But as men of science anatomize the dead for the benefit of the living, so we here, over the tomb of Pope Gregory XVI., would point out the fatal errors of the Romish system, and caution all against the insidious wiles with which Popery would ensnare them.

It is not unnatural to suppose that those who consider the Pope as the head of their ecclesiastical system, should regard with feelings of deep regret his removal from this sublunary world. That they should speak of him as a great, a good, a holy man, need not surprise, if his life was one of consistency with the tenets and principles of that system of which he had been elected the supreme governor ; but with the nature of those principles, Protestants in general,—we believe we may add, also, Roman Catholics in general, at least, English Roman Catholics, are not, we imagine, fully acquainted. They do not sufficiently consider how opposed are the principles of the Church of Rome to the cause of true religion, and the best interests of men and nations. We are desirous, therefore, of here introducing our readers to a few passages from a Romish periodical, the "Tablet," of June 13, under the article headed "The Death of Pope Gregory XVI.,” and a few extracts from another document.

The

The writer, in the leading article, observes: "There is a solemnity in the death of such a man, which derives but little of its impressiveness from surprise. It is not a rushlight of human manufacture that has been extinguished, but a sun which has set in the heavens. lips that are closed were the keepers of God's revelations; were by him guided and preserved from error, and were the fountains from which the streams of Christian doctrine were appointed to flow upon the earth. Infallible, but not impeccable, the tongue which could not falsify the truths of religion has gone to render an account of those things in which it could err."

We especially invite attention to those portions of the above quotation which we have, for distinction sake, placed in italics.

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The same article proceeds: If, in the course of nature, some taint of sin or of weakness stained his soul, who is there of the flock of which he was the supreme pastor that will not raise his voice in prayer to God for him who, for sixteen years, kept such heedful watch over the spiritual interests committed to his charge."

Again: "Yes, the Pope is dead! A great prince of the Church has fallen into the clutches of death. The light of the world, set by God upon a hill, has been extinguished. Rome is without a Bishop. The company of the faithful is without a ruler on the earth. Christ our Redeemer is without a Vicar amongst the sons of men."

Such is in part the language adopted by the "Tablet."

What have we here?The lips of the late Pope were the keepers of God's revelations ! In the same manner as the monks, till the time of Luther, and as the Romish priesthood in the present day-where they can, keep the revelations of eternal truth from the people, and send their unhappy fellow-sinners to the grave and judgment-seat