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Leader (1850-1860), 16th November 1850, Edition Town of 1, Page 803

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      of the Irish kind—all on one side . The right of every human being to his convictions , and to the spiritual government founded on those convictions , we hold to be the most sacred of all rights ; and , much as we may labour to uproot what we regard as the errors of certain dogmas , we have uniformly respected the liberty of thought . Those , therefore , who express some surpriseat our advocacy of the justice and reasonableness of the new hierarchy , must allow us to express our surprise at their imperfect liberalism . The outcrythathasbeen made , the

      ridiculous trash that has been uttered , the savage bigotry that has been called forth , the fermentation of foolishness and prejudice that has agitated England on this topic is a disgrace to the nation , and will write a page in history over which our children will be scornful . Nor does it speak well for the journalism of the country that even the " Liberals" should have given in to the popular folly . It would have been easy for us to secure a little extra popularity by humouring the public madness ; easy , but it would have been a lie J It would have been in direct

      violation of the very principles we are in existence to support . What is the gravamen of the charge ? Do men really believe that the adoption of new titles by one party will alter the convictions of the other party ? The new titles are no new arguments ; and , if they were , we should be bound to respect them . A month ago the English Catholic Church was understood to be a tolerated Church , governed by

      Apostolic Vicars , and holding spiritual allegiance to the Pope . It was thought to be a mass of error and " mummery "; but , with a serene smile of pity , it was tolerated as a lingering senility , which bilious women and feebleminded young men were striving to reanimate . What is the change ? The Apostolic Vicars , representatives of the Pope , have been changed into ordinary Bishops , representative of the local branch of the Catholic Church . The

      change instead of making the Church more Popish makes it more English . Henceforth these Bishojjs take their titles from the flocks they really govern , not from distant sees , where they never reside . Does this change in polity effect any change in spiritual power over those not in its Church ? The question seems too absurd to be asked ; but the absurd public has answered it affirmatively . If any Protestant will come forward and state unequivocally that the security of his religion and the " religion of his fathers" depends upon an anomalous condition of the Romish Church , and

      that to give Catholics a recognized existence is to convert all England to Catholicism—if any Protestant will boldly say that his creed cannot withstand the teachings of that " sink of iniquity" " mother of harlots" ( as Rome is publicly called , to sympathetic cheers ) , we shall know how to deal with him ; but , although no courageous man has yet said that , thousands have said it by implication . Yet as soon as that idea rises into distinctness Protestant pride revolts at it , and echoes Lord John Russell ' s fanfaronade , that he was •« more indignant than alarmed . " Indignant at what ? At the insult offered to the Established Church ? But on

      this subject hear Mr . Ambrose Lisle Plnllippswho some years ago communicated to the Pope his ideas upon the importance of this reestablishment of the hierarchy—and who in his Letter to Lord Shrewsbury says : — " But , say the authors of this outcry , the Pope by this act has offered a solemn insult to the Protestant . Established Church of this kingdom and to the Government of the realm . How so ? Let us hear their reply , though there never was a reply more absurd . They say that the appointment of a Catholic Metropolitan for the Catholics of this country denies and tramples under

      foot the claims of the Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury . Now , what do they mean by this ? Do they mean to say that the Pope ever recognized , or that the English Catholics ever submitted to , the sway of the Protestant Primate over anything beyond the discordant body of his own nominal subjects ? For , if that had been so , to what purpose did the predecessors of the present Pope send Vicars Apostolic into England to govern us in his name , to ordain priest 9 , to administer sacraments to us according to the rite of the Universal Church ? No , these writers know very well that they are insulting the common sense of their readers when

      Archbishop of Westminster ignore or annul the claims of the Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury to the allegiance of his own divided flock ? If Englishmen still choose to venture their souls to the guidance of a Royal Supremacy , they will naturally look up to a prelate who holds his see by the grace of Queen Victoria , and who refuses to give an answer , when he is asked concerning the authoritative teaching of his own Church upon an article of Faith . It is not for such as these that the successor of St . Peter has erected the Metropolitan See of Westminster . "

      Mr . Phillipps recals the fact that the Free Kirk Secession in Scotland set up Presbyteries in opposition to those of the establishment . But this has been rejected as not a case in point . There is a case in point , however : one quite parallel to that in dispute , viz ., the erection in Scotland of an hierarchy in flagrant violation of the Union . The Scotch Church is Presbyterian , yet Scotland is divided into episcopal dioceses , just as England is now divided by the Pope . The Bishop of Edinburgh is as much an " insult" to the Church of Scotland , as the Bishop of Westminster is to the Church of England .

      A spiritual hierarchy can only concern the followers of that particular faith for whose behoof it is instituted ; and when the Lord Chancellor of England publicly declares that the Papal Bull places Protestant England under a Roman Catholic Hierarchy , he utters a vulgar claptrap which he must surely know is without a particle of common sense . It is a wretched quibble thus to talk of Protestant England . The Pope does not recognize Protestants : they are heretics in his eyes , and until they return into the fold he has no connection with them . The see of Westminster does not mean all

      the inhabitants of Westminster ; it means such of them as are members of the Catholic Church acknowledging his supreme jurisdiction , and spiritually isolated from the rest , as the Jews are . But the Catholics will attempt to convert us 1 Very likely . Quite right too . Do you never attempt to convert anybody ? Are you afraid of the Catholics beating you in your own parish ? Your hands are not tied ; your doctrines are not persecuted ; logic and eloquence are weapons within your reach , why should you fear them in the

      hands of others ? But the fact is , with all your boasting , you do fear them . You think it quite right to send out missionaries to preach Christianity to heathens ; you send them to convert Mahometans , but if a band of Mahometan teachers came over here , would you suffer tbern to stand at Charing-cross and unfold the truth of the Koran proclaiming its superiority over the Bible ? No , you would not suffer it for a day . Exeter-hall would perspire with wrath and terror . That is liberty of opinion .

      If Rome should triumph it will be only retributive justice . The Church of England has belied her principle , and has arrested , to the full extent of her power , the vitality of Protestantism . Rome can only be combated by Reason j absolute Authority by absolute Freedom . So little does our Church understand her real position that she expels from her precincts all who do not blindly adhere to her formalities and dogmas j she makes enemies of the liberal Nonconformists ; she exasperates all the enthusiastic whose piety happens to assume forms

      varying from her own ; she weakens herself hy discarding as " infidels " the whole of those true Pro . testants who protest against Church infallibility , the Spiritualists who will produce the New Reformation . Germany is her bugbear ; because in Germany they " dare to interpret" Scripture . She adopts the same ground as Rome , though without the same logical consistency . She declares that the Church has settled the truth . So says Rome , The Bishop of London , in his answer to the deputation on Friday week , said that by the blessing of God

      the Church had one test of truth to which she can always have recourse—the pure word of God as explained by the Church herself . What say the Catholics more than this ? The question , then , arises which Church is right—who is the infallible authority , the Pope or the Archbishop ? But we have no fears that Home will triumph . The conquests of free thought are fortunately not limited to the Church of England ; and all who

      are terrified at the prospect of seeing Rome once more dominant in England have onl y the more strenuously to fight for absolute freedom of opinion . While thus distinctly tracing the relative positions of religious parties , it becomes evident that if we would act up to our professions of tolerationif we would truwt to the real strength of our cause , Freedom , —we must suffer the Catholics to arrange their own affairs according to their own lights , so

      long as those arrangements do not interfere with the liberty of our own . As a question of diplomacy it was , perhaps , wrong in the Pope to assume the particular titles in question , because the name could have but a minor advantage , and was certain to rouse the alaiin of jealous Protestants ; but so long as the Bishop of Westminster does not attempt to control Protestants , so long as he confines ^ himself to his legitimate functions as Catholic bishop , it will be the very madness of bigotry to deny the

      justice of the arrangement . " Absolute liberty /' says the immortal Locke , "just and true liberty , equal and impartial liberty is the thing that we stand in need of . Now , though this , indeed , has been much talked of , I doubt it has not been much understood . I am sure not at all practised either by our governors towards the people in general , or by any dissenting parties of the people towards one another . " This , then , is the cry of the Leader : Set the human soul free , and Goo defend the right !

      they make such an assertion as this . From the moment when the Holy See excommunicated Queen Elizabeth nnd all her adherents , they know as we-li as we do that the Popes and wary member of tha Catholic Churchy from the rising to the . tmltinf / sun , anathematized the claims of the Protestant Church of England , and that hundreds are now numbered in ' the noble army of martyrs' for having sealed their testimony to this great and Divine Truth with their blood . In whatrespect then , let me ask , has the Bull of Pins the Ninth alrpred the relations of the Catholics of England to the Established Church ? How or in what docs the claim of the Lord Cardinal

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      OUR EXPENSIVE SHOPKEEPING SYSTEM . The universal complaint of London housewives is that nearly all kinds of provisions are too dear , even in 1850 . How much dearer they will become by next summer we leave the alarmists to calculate . With some eight or ten hundred thousand extra mouths to feed , the butchers and bakers of the metropolis will find no difficulty in making their own prices . But it is not of the dearth of 1851 that we mean to speak at present . " We wish merely

      to notice the prevailing complaint that , in London more especially , free trade has not been accompanied with that fall in the prices of food which most people anticipated . If we ask the political economist to explain this phenomenon he refers to the omnipotent law of supply and demand , and assures us that the evil will soon cure itself . If the butcher or the baker is asking more than a fair profit , competition , we are told , will soon bring prices down to a moderate rate . Now this would be

      highly consolatory to persons suffering from . That aggravation of all earthly ilk . The weekly inflammation of their bills , " if they could only believe that the butcher or the baker is able to sell his goods at a much lower rate than he does at present . This is a point , however , on which we have very strong doubts . Take the case of the butcher , for example , as stated by the Weekly Dispatch , \ u a very sensible article on this topic : —

      " Our house is about two miles from the Bank—not at the West-End , but north and east , among the bourgeoisie . We pay to the local butcher 8 ( 1 . per pound for pork , and 7 £ d . for sirloin of beef . We know many who pay 9 d ., and even lOd . Yet , on the very same day on which these prices were exacted from us we saw fine young pork sold in Leadenhall and Newgate Markets for 6 d ., and sirloin of beef , superior in quality to those supplied to ourselves , at 4 d . per pound . We cannot complain of the charges made bjr our local butcher . He has rent and taxes to pay , journeymen , boys , carts , and horses to keep , gas to burn , and a family to keep . Within a hundred square yards of us there are eight butchers , and the customers within that narrow

      range choose , apparently , to maintain eight establishments for distribution , where one could serve the purpose . So long as that expensive system is maintained by the consent of the consumers , they must be content to pny cent , per cent , upon the first retail cost of even this prime necessary of life . We do not advise a violent and sudden change of the existing system , which has grown up by the unwise encouragement of the public , ana which could not be all at once reformed without great injury to many industrious tradesmen . But it is obvious that the business of distribution is carried on with unnecessary extravagance , to the effect of depriving the masses of the people of the privilege of receiving double the present nourishment , without any encrease of cost whatever . "

      This is well and justly said . But the Dispatch does not advert to the main cause of this expensive mode of distributing the products of industry . On a former occasion we drew attention to the enormous encrease of the shopkeeping class as one of the dropsical symptoms of our false industrial system , and endeavonred to show that it chiefly arises from the difficulty of investing small or moderate sums of money in the purchase of land . The result is that every person who has saved a few hundred pounds turns to shopkeeping ; that all branches of retail trade are overstocked j and that , notwithstanding the high rates of profit charged by most tradesmen , few of them can do more than make a bare living .

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      DON'T LET THE BULL , SEE SCARLET ! Tnrc Bull is a noble animal : broad , powerful , substantial , not , very aagacious , not very vivacious , not very excitable . lie has many solid virtues , and is perfectly respectable ; but his intense hatred of

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      Nov . 16 , 1850 . ] 8 C f ) t it t a Jr t V * 803

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 16, 1850, page 803, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1859/page/11/