The man who was

all the prisoners should be obliged to attend. condemned for having had the meeting in his house, and for not worshipping that which they blasphemously called the Holy Ghost, was ordered to mass with the rest on the first of June. He refused to go. The jailers attempted to force him, but in vain. Soldiers were called. He grasped the iron bars of the jail window, in order to prevent himself from being dragged to mass. He was struck with the butt-ends of their muskets. His grasp was overcome by violence, and at the point of the bayonet he was driven to what he regarded as idolatry. He went; but did not kneel there; he could not. After mass, he felt that he had done wrong, even though compelled; he felt that it would have been better that his blood should have been shed there, than that he should have offended his God; and he resolved, that on the ensuing Sabbath no power on earth should compel him to attend. During that week, he conversed with many of his fellow-prisoners, and having received more instruction than they, he reasoned with them from the Scriptures. On the 8th of June, twenty prisoners refused to go to mass, and no power could force them; blows and bayonets failed. What was the result? There is, in the jail of Funchal, a place called the Bomba. Respecting that place, I may mention that the day after my release from prison, I sent a friend to distribute bread to the prisoners, and on coming out of the Bomba, he gave unequivocal manifestations of his being sick, and nearly fainted, it is a most abominably disgusting den of filth. In that place, there were, on the 7th of June, fifteen persons confined, for various offences; and on the 8th, when the prisoners refused to go to mass, there were five more added. I wished to go and take the dimensions of it, but could not get admission, and asked a friend to take them for me. He did so; and the paper he brought to me stated that the Bomba is twelve feet square, by eleven feet high; in that loathsome room twenty men were confined night and day. For what? For refusing to pay that homage to a bit of bread, which man owes to his God!

and

We are told, Christian friends, that Popery is changed, that she persecutes no more, that there is not a country on earth where Popery now persecutes, and that she is so changed that she would never wish to persecute. We answer, Popery does not drag out her victims and burn them at the stake in open day: no, for as yet she dares not. But she does what she dares; those who will not obey her despotic commands she throws into the Bomba, that there they may endure a death, far more lingering, and far more horrid, than at the stake. Let men look into the Bomba in Funchal jail, and answer whether Popery does not now persecute.

Reference has been made to the Scriptures, and to the desire of Romanists, and others, to exclude the Bible, from the schools. Popery has been long known, as the enemy of knowledge, but especially of Biblical knowledge. In England, she wishes to persuade men, that she is not the enemy of the Bible itself, but only of spurious and adulterated editions, and she made a similar profession in Madeira. In 1840, the bishop expressed a wish to see a copy of the Bible, that was being put into the hands of his people. One was gladly sent to him. On the 21st of May, he placed it in the

hands of three canons of the cathedral of Funchal, and appointed them, as a Commission, to examine it, and to report to him, as to its correctness or incorrectness. Two years and four months afterwards, he published a pastoral, wherein he stated that that Commission had reported, "that there was scarcely a verse of any chapter either of the Old or New Testament, which was not more or less notably adulterated;" and he added, that he "excommunicated ipso facto all who should read those Bibles." We have already seen what excommunication implies; and we now find the Bishop coming forward, with all his authority, and excommunicating ipso facto, all who read those Bibles. But they were declared to be of a spurious and adulterated edition. On reading his pastoral, I was confounded; I did not believe that the British and Foreign Bible Society had issued an unfaithful reprint of Pereira's Bible, and could not suppose it possible, that three canons should risk their character, by stating a bare-faced falsehood. What was my surprise, in finding, upon getting a copy of the Lisbon edition of the Bible, and comparing it with that of the Bible Society, that in the Gospel of St. Matthew there was not an alteration, in any verse of that book. I immediately published an answer to the pastoral, advising that his Excellency the Bishop should suspend his curse on the Word of God, till it could be seen whether the other books were as correct as St. Matthew's Gospel. In consequence of the pastoral, the judge came to the jail, with the public prosecutor, and other judiciary officers, and ordered all the boxes of the prisoners to be searched for Bibles; and he took away every copy of the Scriptures, that he found there! The chief police magistrate went to a school, supported by English charity, and took away thirty Bibles, and all the Testaments that he could find! During the course of the ensuing week, the Commission published an answer to my observations. In it, they reasserted what they had said, "that there was scarcely a verse of any chapter, either of the New or Old Testament, which was not adulterated." The comparison of the two editions went on; upwards of 5,000 verses were examined; and the result was, a complete refutation of the Commissioners' Report. Within two months after the Bishop's curse on these books of God, there came from Lisbon an order from the Portuguese Government, in which Her Majesty the Queen, approved of these very Bibles, and stated that they were approved of by the Archbishop also. But, notwithstanding this, the Bishop's curse still rests upon the book of God; the priests, from the pulpit, declare, that it is a book from hell, and should be burned, with the hands that handle it: and when my house was attacked, on the ninth of August, 1846, every copy of the sacred Scriptures, which was found, was actually thrown into a fire, on the public street, by the mob, when they ascertained that their expected human victims had escaped their outrage. Suppose that in the present distressed state of Ireland, a man should go through one of her most famishing villages, selling bread at a reduced price to those that could pay for it, and giving it gratis to those who could not, and that some, whose pecuniary interests were interfered with by the gratuitous distribution, should seek to persuade the people that the bread was poisoned, and should endeavour to incite them to trample it under foot and murder their benefactor, who would not

call such conduct atrocious ? But suppose, further, some of the famishing creatures to have tasted the bread, and found, that it not only did them no harm, but that it actually restored their drooping limbs, and gave them new life; if, then, these selfish and cruel tyrants were to snatch it from their hands and cast it into the fire, and then beat, imprison, and excommunicate them merely for feeding upon it and giving it to their dying children, what words could we find powerful enough to characterize their guilt ? Their, guilt, however, would be as nothing, compared with the guilt of those, who snatch the bread of life from men, who are eagerly seeking to feed upon it, that their souls may live for ever.

It seems very probable, that many of our liberal friends will complain of the terms of this Resolution, and represent it as rashly and unwisely seeking to interfere with the mercantile relations and interests of the country, for a mere chimera. These same men tell us, that Popery is now tolerant and liberal, but they do not believe it themselves, or they could not imagine that she would refuse us what we ask-they could not anticipate that by insisting on such terms in our treaties with Popish countries, there would be the slightest danger of interfering with our mercantile interests. Those who advance this objection show that they are already fully convinced that Popery is not tolerant, and if they foster in this country a system which they know to be persecuting and intolerant they are enemies to the rights and liberties of their country. If they do so, while presuming to call themselves Liberals, they stamp themselves as traitors, professing friendship to Liberty-and destroying it.

As a test of their sincerity in professing to believe that Popery is tolerant, we call on them to support us in asking for British subjects residing in Popish states those liberties and immunities referred to in this Resolution, and if Popery be not intolerant, she will most assuredly grant them at once.

The Resolution was seconded by the Rev. R. W. Dibdin, and was also agreed to; and after singing the Doxology, and the benediction being pronounced, the Meeting separated.

THE IRISH CHURCH.

To the Editor of the Protestant Magazine.

SIR,-There is a party in the country favourable to the present Government, and professedly religious men, who are using every means to lull the public mind to sleep on the question of the Irish Church and the Endowment of Romanism. But this is a great and momentous question, which ought not to be suffered to go to rest at all. It is, in fact, the great battle-field, on which, in all probability, the fate of Protestant England is to be decided. O'Connell, is the organ and the champion of the Romish priesthood. A Romish bishop, of the name of Browne, stated this distinctly at the Conciliation Hall, in so many words, very recently, by saying that O'Connell was the organ of the hierarchy and clergy of his Church, and he knew that they were for the Liberator, and against the Young Ireland party. Now the Liberator, as they style him, keeps up an unceasing agitation, ostensibly for the Repeal of the Union. This makes Ireland the chief difficulty of each successive Government. And the main consideration with them has been, what shall be done to appease and satisfy O'Connell, who is nothing else than the tool and instrument of the Romish priesthood. The notable expedient

then now likely to be resorted to by the leading men of all parties is to endow the Church of Rome in Ireland. Thus the real end of all O'Connell's agitation, is, not the Repeal of the Union, but to obtain the recognition of the Church of Rome by the State, and to set her up in Ireland as a rival establishment to the Protestant Church. It needs no reasoning to shew that immediately afterwards the downfall of the latter would be the inevitable consequence. I believe the Members of the present Government are almost all of them the advocates for the payment of the Romish priesthood in Ireland by the State, or from the spoils of the Irish Church. Lord Grey, Lord Fortescue, Lord Ebrington, Mr. Appropriation Ward, as he is called, even Lord John Russell himself, have all expressed opinions to such effect.

And I very much question, whether it was consistent with the coronation oath, that men with such hostile feelings towards the Irish Church should have been appointed the State Advisers of our Protestant Queen.

As it is, the Church of Ireland now stands in the hottest part of the conflict, encompassed on every side, by enraged and insatiable enemies. She is like a missionary Church, and not only in the midst of an idolatrous and deluded population, but in the midst of one that is inflamed and excited to tear her to pieces, and to bring her down to the ground.

Surely then, it is a great Christian duty to exert ourselves to the utmost for her succour and relief. And I would earnestly advise that Petitions should be poured in as soon as Parliament assembles for the maintenance of the Church of Ireland in all her integrity.

TRACTARIAN SECESSION TO

POPERY.

To the Editor of the Protestant
Magazine.

A SUPPORTER OF THE IRISH CHURCH.

When Mr. Newman used the ex

pression "I am not speaking my own words," he refers, not to any censures of Romish DOCTRINE which had once been propounded by him, but merely to a certain harshness of LANGUAGE in which his censures had been conveyed. This construetion is established by the circumstance, that he withdraws his harsh LANGUAGE in consequence of a correspondent having objected to it under the appellations of name-calling and slang: while it is yet further apparent, from Mr. Newman's concluding remarks, that " admission of this kind involves no retractation of what he had written in defence of Anglican doctrine."

an

I. The argument is plausible, and would have had considerable weight, if the various passages, quoted by Mr. Newman himself from his own writings between the years 1833 and 1837, and then repudiated by him through the expression "I am not speaking my own words," had all been nothing more than mere instances of harsh LANGUAGE. But this is not the case. The repudiated passages are of a mixed nature. Some of them employ, what the delicacy of modern candour (so called) may deem harsh LANGUAGE; though, açcording to my old-fashioned percep tions, they do nothing more than call a spade a spade; but others, without any harshness of LANGUAGE, simply specify and then censure Romish DOCTRINES.

I subjoin instances of this latter form of censure.

1. In the year 1833, he pronounced Rome to be, doctrinally of course, a lost Church."

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2. In the same year, he spoke of Popery under the name of "the Papal Apostasy."

3. In the same year, he wrote: "If she has apostatized, it was at the time of the Council of Trent." This, whether properly or improperly, sim