If a religious Revolution consists in a powerful change in the religious feelings of a country, then are we at this moment in the midst of a religious Revolution! If a spirit of ardour suddenly starting forth in a period of apathy, if public zeal superseding public indifference, and if popular fidelity to a great forgotten cause, pledging itself to make that cause national once more, exhibit an approach to a miracle, then there has been made on the mind of England an impression not born of man. But if those high interpositions have always had a purpose worthy of the source from which they descend, we must regard the present change of the general mind as only a precaution against some mighty peril of England, or a preparation for some comprehensive and continued triumph of principle in Europe. That England is a tolerant country has never been questioned. Though the whole frame of its constitution is actually founded on the supremacy of the sovereign, and, of course, on the derivation of ecclesiastical power, as well as of every other, from the throne; though therefore the high appointments of the Church have been vested in the Crown, and the subordination of the great body of the clergy has necessarily connected them with the throne, the principle of toleration shapes all things. The ecclesiastical constitution excludes all violence to other disciplines; allows every division of religious opinion to take its own way; and even suffers Popery, with all its hostility, to take its own way—to have its churches and chapels, its public services, its discipline, and all the formalities, however alien and obnoxious, which it deems important to its existence.

None familiar with the history of Popery can doubt that its principle is directly the reverse—that it tolerates no other religion; that it suffers no other religious constitution; that where the tree of Popery lifts its trunk and spreads its branches, all freedom of opinion withers within its shade.

Rome, by an usurpation unexampled even in the wildest periods of heathenism, insists on seizing that which is wholly beyond human seizure—the conscience; demands that uniformity of opinion which it was never within the competency of man to enforce on man; and punishes man by the dungeon, confiscation, and death, for feelings which he can no more control, and for truths which he can no more controvert, than he can the movements of the stars.

If it has been argued that Protestantism is equally condemnatory of those who dissent from its doctrine, the obvious answer is, that it simply declares the condemnation annexed by Scripture to vice. But it attempts no execution of that punishment, leaving the future wholly to the mercy or the justice of the Judge of the quick and dead. Popery not merely passes the sentence, but executes it, as far as can be done by man. Thus the distinction is, that Protestantism goes no further than to declare what the welfare of mankind requires to be declared. But Popery takes the judgment into its own hands; and, where it has power, punishes by confiscation and chains, by the dungeon and the grave. And the especial evil of this usurpation is, that this punishment may exist, not for notorious vice, but for conspicuous virtue; not only that it takes God's office into its grasp, but that it insults the whole character of God's law. It goes farther still, and gathers within its circle of reprobation things which are wholly beyond the limit of crime—the exercise of knowledge, the right of conscience, and the sincerity of decision.

Yet, by this violent assumption of divine right, and lawless comprehension of crime, Popery has slain millions!

This distinction draws the broad line between Popery and Protestantism. The Protestant never persecutes; he is barred by his religion. The Papist never tolerates; he is stimulated by his creed. When Protestant worship is tolerated in Popish countries, the toleration is either compelled by Protestant superiority, or purchased by Popish necessities. But the claim of supremacy corrupts the whole combination. Where it is not extorted from the hands of Government, it still remains in the mind of the priesthood. Where it is blotted from the statute book, it is still registered in the breviary. Where it is extinguished by policy, it is revived by priestcraft. Like the pestilence, disappearing from the higher orders, it lurks in the rags of the populace, and waits only some new chance of earth or air, to ravage the land again. Or, like the housebreaker, hiding his head while day shines, but waiting only for nightfall to sally forth, and gather his plunder when men are vigilant no more.

The Papal Bull which has aroused such a storm of wrath in England, gives the full exemplification of this undying spirit of usurpation in Popery.

Beaten down in field and council three centuries and a half since—baffled in every attempt to domineer over England from the Reformation—in every instance sinking from depth to depth—wholly excluded from legislative power by the greatest of British kings, William III., for a hundred years of the most memorable triumphs of the constitution—Popery has now, before our eyes, to the astonishment of our understandings, and to the resistless evidence of its own passion for power, returned to all its old demands, and to more than its old demands; and, as if to make the evidence more glaring, returned at the moment when England is at the height of power, and Rome in the depth of debasement; when England is in her meridian of intelligence, and Rome in her midnight; when England is the great influential power of peace and war to all nations, and when Rome is a garrison of foreign hirelings, and her monarch the menial of their master's will.

If those demands are made, with Popery living in an actual paralysis of all the functions of sovereignty, what would be their execution with Popery lording it over the land? If Popery can issue these proclamations from the floor of its dungeon, what would be the sway of its sword when it strode over the neck of the empire? If, stript and manacled, it can thus rage against Protestantism, what would be its fury when, with new strength and unrestrained daring, its march headed by treachery in the higher orders, and followed by fanaticism in the lower, it should take possession of the Constitution?

While England was in a state of drowsy tranquillity, a Papal Bull appeared, under the signature of Cardinal Lambruschini, the Papal Secretary. A more daring document never was fabricated in the haughtiest days of Papal tyranny. It divided England into twelve Dioceses of the Popedom; it appointed twelve bishops, and appropriated to them all the rights and privileges of Episcopacy in England; and it called on all the Papists to contribute to the new pomp of the Popish worship, and the subsistence of the Diocesans.

This document is long and desultory; but as it is of importance to lay the case authentically before the reader, it shall be given in its own words, abbreviating only the formalities of the verbiage.

"Pius P. P. IX.—The power of ruling the Universal Church, committed by our Lord Jesus Christ to the Roman Pontiff in the person of St Peter, Prince of the Apostles, hath preserved through every age in the Apostolic See this remarkable solicitude, by which it consulteth for the advantage of the Catholic religion in all parts of the world, and studiously provideth for its extension. And this correspondeth with the design of its Divine founder, who, when he ordained a head to the Church, looked forward to the consummation of the world. Among other nations, the famous realm of England hath experienced the effects of this solicitude on the part of the Sovereign Pontiff."

After referring to the agency sustained by the Papacy in England from 1623, by nominal bishops, the Bull declares that, from the commencement of his pontificate, Pius had his attention fixed on the "promotion of the Church's advantage in that kingdom. Wherefore, having taken into consideration the present state of Catholic affairs in that kingdom, and reflecting on the very large and everywhere increasing number of Catholics there; considering also that the impediments which principally stood in the way of the spread of Catholicity were daily being removed, we judged that the time had arrived when the form of Ecclesiastical Government in England might be brought back to that model in which it exists freely among other nations." It seemed good to the Pope to establish his Bishops among us, as they were in Popish countries. The result is, "that in the kingdom of England, according to the common rule of the Church, we constitute and decree that there be restored the hierarchy of ordinary bishops."

Before we proceed, we must observe the quantity of assumption, even in this fragment. 1st, That Christ gave the Headship of the Universal Church, (he himself being the only Head); 2d, That St Peter was the head of the apostles, (which is contradicted by the whole apostolic history;) and 3d, That this right has always and everywhere belonged to Rome!—(a right resisted by the Greek Church, by a large portion of even the Latin Church, by the early British Church, and by the Syrian.)

It is further admitted, that a change has lately taken place in the relative conditions of English Protestantism and Popery, and that the appointment of bishops is for the purpose "of extending that change"—in other words, of acquiring power, and urging proselytism, in a Protestant state, where the Papist is tolerated only on the promise of peace.

But all disguise is now thrown aside, as if it was no longer necessary. The movement is acknowledged to be one of national conversion; religious conquest is declared to be the object; the Pope, in planting twelve new bishops in British sees, declares that he is resuming the old supremacy of Rome—thus, holding out reconciliation in one hand, and retaliation in the other, he is prepared at once to supersede the national religion.

In conformity with this declaration, he has taken the map of England into his hand; and, surrounded by his cardinals, has dissected it into dioceses in the following style:—

All England and Wales shall henceforth form one Archiepiscopal Province.

In the district of London there shall be an Archbishopric of Westminster, comprising Middlesex, Essex, and Hertfordshire.

The See of Southwark is to be suffragan to that of Westminster, and is to comprehend the counties of Berks, Southampton, Surrey, Sussex, and Kent, with the isles of Wight, Jersey, Guernsey, and the adjacent isles.

In the north there is to be the Diocese of Hexham.

The Diocese of York will be established at Beverley.

In the west, the See of Liverpool, comprehending the Isle of Man, Lonsdale, Amounderness, (?) and West Derby.

The See of Salford, comprising Blackburn and Leyland.

In Wales, there shall be the Diocese of Shrewsbury, comprising Anglesea, Caernarvon, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Merionethshire, Montgomeryshire, Cheshire, and Salop.

And the Diocese of Newport, comprising Brecknockshire, Glamorganshire, Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire, Monmouthshire, and Herefordshire.

The West is divided into two Bishoprics:—

Clifton, comprising Gloucestershire, Somersetshire, and Wiltshire; And Plymouth, comprising Devonshire, Dorsetshire, and Cornwall.

In the Central District, the Diocese of Nottingham shall comprise Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, and Rutlandshire.

The Diocese of Birmingham, comprising the counties of Stafford, Warwick, Worcester, and Oxford.

The Eastern district shall form one Diocese, under the name of Northampton.

Thus England shall form one Ecclesiastical Province, under one Archbishop and twelve Bishops.

They are to correspond with the College de Propagand Fide.

The new Bishops are to be unshackled by any previous customs of the Romish Church in England, and to have full Episcopal powers.

The Papal letter concludes by a recommendation to the Roman Catholics of England "to contribute, so far as in their power," by their pecuniary means, to the dignity of their Prelates and the "splendour of their worship," &c.

To prevent all idea that this division is merely nominal or spiritual, or unconnected with penalties on Protestantism, the principal Popish journal in England has added the following comment:—

"Rome has more than spoken; she has spoken and acted. She has again divided our land into dioceses, and has placed over each a pastor, to whom all baptized persons (!) without exception (!) within that district, are openly commanded to submit themselves in all ecclesiastical matters, under pain of damnation (!) And the Anglican Sees—those ghosts of realities long past away—are utterly ignored."

The bull proceeds: "Thus, then, in the most flourishing kingdom of England, there will be established one Ecclesiastical Province, consisting of an Archbishop or metropolitan head, and twelve Bishops, his suffragans, by whose exertions and pastoral cares we trust God will give to Catholicity in that country a fruitful and daily increasing extension.

"Wherefore we now reserve to ourselves and our successors, the Pontiffs of Rome, the power of again dividing the said province into others, and of increasing the number of dioceses, as occasion shall require; and, in general, as it shall seem fitting in the land, we may freely declare new limits to them."

Thus we find that the Pope is to hold a perpetual bag of mitres in his hand, out of which every aspirant for the honours of Rome and the lucre of England is to have his dole. Every head among us that aches for honours may now know where to look for them. Professorships and parishes need no longer keep the new school lingering on the edge of Popery; their consciences (!) may be relieved without injuring their pockets; they may allow themselves to "speak out;" and after half-a-dozen years of the most stubborn denials of Popery—of paltry protests and beggarly equivocation—of defending their orthodoxy in the press, and betraying their apostacy in the pulpit—they will be enabled to turn their backs on Protestantism, probably with a very useful addition to their resources, and start up from Curates and Canons into "My Lords." England would give very comfortable room for a speculation of this kind. Sixpence a piece from twenty millions of people would be better than all the Professorships of both Universities; and a seat in the House of Lords (which would be inevitably demanded, and which would be unhesitatingly conceded by Whig flexibility) would place the obscure and the avaricious very much at their ease.

To a Roman financier the prospect might have other charms. The present budget of the Popedom is supposed to be within a couple of millions sterling, and even that paid in a manner by no means creditable to Italian punctuality. As for the old tributes from Naples, Spain, and France, we may fairly return them as nil, those powers having more use for money than they possess bullion, and none of them being secure of army, populace, or parliament. A twelvemonth, in these times, may see the monarchs of the three succeeding to the vacant apartments of the Orleans dynasty at Claremont.

But what an incomparable windfall would England be to the Papal pauperism of these times! A bishop in every county gathering the alms of the faithful! or, if one bishop were not enough, might not the "sovereign pontiff," as the little Welsh Bishop reverently names Pio Nono, make fifty? He has graciously reserved to himself the right of "increasing and multiplying them" to the extent of all exigencies. We might soon have a bishop in every city, or a bishop in every village. We might have those holy locusts coming on the wing from every corner of the Continent; those cormorants of Rome fishing in our waters, until they carried off their prey to disgorge it into the capacious maw of Rome!

And that this operation would take place, on the first opportunity, is as certain as that "Peter's pence" were once raised in England with as much regularity as the king's taxes; that every Papist in Europe paid his portion of pence to Rome; that every bishop received his mitre from Rome; and that Rome never gave anything without a sum in hand, or a handsome promissory note—and that Rome boasts of being always the same. All this traffic would be under the name of charity; the old cry of Judas, "Ought not this ointment to have been sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?" would be echoed by the new keeper of the bag; and we should establish an annual drain of our circulation, to which all the contrivances of taxation would be child's play. For what could be the limit to the demands of foreign avarice invested with domestic authority, extortion calling itself zeal? or what could be the limits of a market selling absolution here, and Paradise hereafter, to profligate men and silly women—to lives wallowing in voluptuousness, and death-beds groaning in despair? It has been distinctly stated that, at the Reformation, one-third of the whole land of England had been absorbed into the possession of the Popish priesthood!

In all the annals of usurpation, there never was a broader grasp than in this Bull; in all the annals of effrontery there never was a more impudent assumption; but, in all the annals of infatuation, there never was an act of more headlong absurdity. It instantly roused the whole people; it reinforced every argument of the honest against Popery; it overthrew every pretence of the dishonest on behalf of Popery; and it worked the still greater wonder of forcing the loose and the lukewarm, the waverers and "waiters on the turn of things;" the "decently" knavish, the "respectably" hollow, and the "reputably" unprincipled, to acknowledge that Popery was really a "presuming kind of thing;" and that it ought to be, in some delicate way or other, if possible, put down.

But England contains other men than those smirking scandals to manhood. The nation burst out into a flame of indignation wherever man met man: in whatever occupation, in whatever rank of life, under whatever form of politics, in all hues of religious opinion, there was but one language. "Was ever insolence like this? Is a foreign friar to carve out the empire? Is a worshipper of stocks and stones to teach us religion? Is a persecutor to mutilate our laws? Is a despot to scandalise our liberties? Is the dependent of France, of Austria, or Spain, or any power that will suffer him to hang upon it, to be the actual divider of England among his dependents? Is a demand of power and possession, that would not be endured in any Popish country of the earth, to be quietly submitted to in the chief of Protestant kingdoms? And is this most insolent of all aggressions to be inflicted by the meanest of all sovereigns on the most powerful of all nations, and that nation the one which has most triumphantly abjured Popery?—England—whose fathers drove it headlong from the land, and cashiered a dynasty for daring to attempt its return; whose Constitution loathes its tyranny, whose honour abhors its artifice, whose literature exposes its deceptions, and whose religion brands its apostacy!"

That this description of the national feeling is not exaggerated, must be evident from the tone of the numberless speeches made at the parochial and provincial meetings, immediately on the publication of the atrocious Bull. The clergy of London and Westminster, as first insulted, took the lead; and their language expressed the natural feelings of offence and scorn excited by this intolerable presumption. The sentiment was unanimous.

Of course Rome is at her old work, and every trick is tried to smooth down the universal disdain. A Dr Ullathorne, who has taken time by the forelock, and bemitred himself without delay, wishes to tell the world that the Bull is a very harmless bull indeed; that the Vicars-Apostolic only wished for a change of name; and that the appointment of dioceses is merely what the Wesleyans and Sectaries effect, in marking out their preaching districts year by year.

But, do the Wesleyans give their preachers titles and badges of dignity? Do they locate them in cathedrals, build palaces for them, and enjoin the whole body of the faithful to "supply the splendour of their worship and themselves?" Do they declare that everything in religion is false but Wesleyanism; that all else have no orders, no Baptism, and no Christianity; that all other beliefs are rebels to the supremacy of John Wesley, and are liable to be punished as rebels in the coming day of Wesleyan power? That such poor evasions should be attempted is a scandal to the talents of Rome as an equivocator, but is not less a scandal to the brains of the man who attempts them, for they can deceive no one. They certainly have not deceived "Father Newman," who daily trumpets forth the triumph of the Bull; nor "Dr Wiseman," who has, by virtue of his red hat, ordered his jubilate to be chanted in every Popish chapel of London; nor the Liverpool Papists, who have actually sung Te Deum on the national victory of Popery; nor have they deceived even the English prelacy, who had gone so much farther than the winking Virgin, and seemed not inclined to use their eyes at all.

Nor will they deceive the people of Scotland, who, in the land of John Knox, are not forgotten by the Pope, but are understood to have allotted to them seven bishops by his provident bounty, seven delegates of Jesuitism, seven ambassadors of his triple-crowned highness, seven sons of the Scarlet Lady of Babylon, seven "purple and fine linen" representatives of Dives, before he was sent "to his place."

In the midst of this busy period, a letter appeared from the pen of the Premier. It was received by the multitude with a burst of acclamation; for this there were reasons of very different colours. Some were glad that Ministers could feel anything on a religious subject; some, that Lord John was on the national side; some that, after having so long raised the suspicions of one side, he had at last challenged the hostility of the other.

We must acknowledge that our gratulation was not altogether so ardent, and that we conceived this letter to be very much more the offspring of his Lordship's fears than his feelings. It was obviously unfortunate that his zeal had been kindled so late, there being no imaginable doubt that the Pope had marked out Westminster for the See of his new Archbishop several years ago. And it is clear, that the appointment of one Archbishop would have been as great an encroachment as the fixture of fifty. The principle was there, and it would evidently be prolific. Yet not a syllable of remonstrance had transpired. Wisdom was silent in the streets, and precaution slumbered within the Cabinet curtains. Whitehall was as quiet as Lambeth, and Lambeth of course was Lethe. No Minister hurried to the palace, with pallid lips and faltering nerves, like him who

But the Dean and Chapter of Westminster had actually attempted to break the slumber, by an address deprecating the appointment, as utterly unconstitutional. This occurred in 1848. It was heard of no more, and silence came again.

As his Lordship's Letter is probably to be regarded as a Cabinet minute, we shall give its chief portions verbatim.

It begins by referring to a letter of the Bishop of Durham, which termed the Bull "insolent and insidious," the latter epithet appearing to us to have no other merit than that of alliteration, the measure not being insidious at all—but, by a remarkable deviation from the customary craft of the Papacy, being one of the most open and audacious insults on record.

The Letter then proceeds to say, that its writer, having "promoted to the utmost of his power the claims of the Roman Catholics to all civil rights"—a fact with which the country was fully acquainted—thought "it right, and even desirable, that the ecclesiastical system of the Roman Catholics should be the means of giving instruction to the numerous Irish immigrants in London and elsewhere, who, without such help, would be left in heathen ignorance."

The latter sentence we do not profess to understand. Does it allude to any arrangement, by which the Papacy was to change the system of simple superintendence, and adopt Dr Wiseman as archbishop, after all? Is this the preliminary to further development, and is the common rumour on the subject the reverse of a mistake? How the kind of religion imported by the legions of Irish beggary into England was to be purified by a new episcopal staff, is wholly beyond our comprehension. Or why the Protestant people of England, after feeding the pauperism of Ireland at home, should be bound to provide for its heresy here—or how, for the further allurement of the superfluous rabble of Ireland, we are to provide, for either their poverty or their pride, the pageant of twelve Popish mitres, we must leave it to his Lordship to explain.

His next sentence is more intelligible.

"There is an assumption of power in all the documents which have come from Rome—a pretension to supremacy over the realm of England, and a claim to sole and undivided sway, which is inconsistent with the Queen's supremacy, with the rights of our bishops and clergy, and with the spiritual independence of the nation, as asserted even in Roman Catholic times."

How this discovery should have been delayed till November 1850, in the apprehension of a public personage acquainted with the general facts of history, handling Popish concerns all his life, and an inveterate supporter of the Popish Bill of 1829, is not easily accounted for. But every man of common intelligence in Europe, (his Lordship excepted,) knew that Popery has existed in a perpetual struggle with all governments for temporal supremacy, under the pretence of spiritual; that it has attempted a constant usurpation of royal authority even in the Popish kingdoms; and that its restless appetite for power requires constant coercion, even by those governments, to render it compatible with any government at all. What is to be said, when Pio Nono has excommunicated the Sardinian government before our eyes? The next sentence is significant: "I confess that my alarm is not equal to my indignation."

Does his Lordship mean by this that we have been frightened by a shadow, while he has preserved his fortitude? or that the nation has been somewhat inclined to play the fool in its fright, while he has preserved his serenity through his superior knowledge? But he then proceeds to inform us what should be the true object of national alarm, and that is Tractarianism!

Without implying that his Lordship here employs that well-known species of diplomacy which substitutes conjecture for reality, we shall tell him that Tractarianism, though exciting much regret, and bringing much discredit on the laxity of discipline which has so long suffered its existence, is not the real danger; that, compared with Popery, it is but the "fly on the chariot wheel;" and that its influence is not to be named for a moment beside the systematic art, the vast extent, and the indefatigable ambition of Popery.

We are not much more reassured by his Lordship's hint of the smallness of the Pope's territorial power.

"What is the danger to be apprehended from a foreign prince of no great power, compared to the danger within the gates?" &c.

But does his Lordship conceive that we are afraid of the Pope's territorial power?—that we are alarmed at an invasion of his Hundred Swiss?—or that any man ever supposed that a minister in the Pontine Marshes was to shake the Religion and State of England? The Popedom has always been a narrow territory, and yet the Papacy has been the great disturber of Europe for a thousand years. Does his Lordship doubt that its weapon was superstition, and that superstition was once universal? But, while we can feel no terror at the sickly absurdities of a few fanatics, or the low artifices of a few hunters after vulgar popularity, who have never reckoned within their ranks any one man of name, or ability, or learning, or even of station—who owe their sole publicity to what the Bishop of London calls a "poor imitation of Popery," and whose bowings and gesticulations are actually objects of national ridicule—we see a wholly different antagonist in a system, possessed of the power of the multitude, addressing itself to every weakness and pampering every passion of man, offering every prize to avarice, and stimulating every appetite for possession; unceasing in pursuit of all its objects, and making everything an object; desperately inimical to religious liberty, and perpetually labouring to establish over every people an authority fatal to the progress of mankind. We see it now with a hundred and forty millions of souls in Popish Europe, with nearly all the Continental thrones Popish, with hundreds of thousands of monks and friars devoted to all the purposes of its ambition, with its seculars mingled through every population, and with the wealth of the whole Popish community ready to be lavished in a crusade of Monkism. We must confess that we feel as much anxiety in the issue of a contest with such a power as is consistent with a feeling of courage in the performance of our duty.

We have never doubted that England, under the protection of a higher power than man, and awakened to a sense of her peril, will triumph in the most hazardous struggle. But her safety must be grounded on her vigilance. The sleeping giant is as helpless as a child.

So fully are we convinced that Rome is the real danger, that we not merely laugh at Tractarianism, in comparison, but we look with suspicion on every attempt to set it up as the danger. To compare this dwarf with the gigantic bulk of Popery seems absurd; and we must therefore reject it as argument altogether. It is also unfortunate for this bugbear that it has been so slow in its discovery, and that the Ministerial terrors have already slept so long, Tractarianism being now a well-grown peril—its siege of the Church having already lasted some years beyond the renowned siege of Troy!

The Letter, however, closes with the spirit of an enthusiast in the "good cause,"—"I will not abate a jot of heart or hope so long as the glorious principles and the immortal martyrs of the Reformation shall be held in reverence by the great mass of a nation which looks with contempt on the mummeries of superstition."

All this is what Dominie Sampson would have pronounced "prodigious!" with his loudest and longest suspiration. And all is eminently curious, in the man whose whole career has been devotion to every Popish demand, and advocacy of every Popish measure; who has risen into office by the influence of Popish voices, and who has been in the intima concilia of the imaginary Archbishop of Westminster!

Must not Protestants ask, By whose advice was Mr Wyse planted in the Greek embassy?—by whom was Mr O'Farril planted in the government of Malta?—by whom was Mr Shiel planted in the embassy to Tuscany—or rather to the whole of western and middle Italy, and in immediate approximation to Rome? Were three Papists selected for those express, and at present most important missions, without a purpose?—were they flung up merely by the diplomatic wheel?—or were those extraordinary appointments of untried men produced by a sudden, and a Papal demand, for the support of a plan?

But this is a time of wonders, and his Lordship's conversion may rank at the summit of them all. However, there is a reason for everything in art and nature; and it is said that a very high personage had a share in this rapid operation on the Ministerial understanding; that the question was asked,—"Pray, who is to be the sovereign?" and that the answer was his Lordship's letter. It concludes by giving the coup-de-grace to the character of Popery, of whose present performances it speaks with scorn, as "laborious endeavours to confine the intellect, and enslave the soul."—(Downing Street, Nov. 4.)

In the meantime "my Lord Cardinal," who had stopped in his posthaste journey, on learning John Bull's theological opinions of his Manifesto, was comforted by an emissary despatched to inform him that the bonfires of the 5th of November had all been suffered to sink into ashes, and that he would escape any severer trial of his fortitude than being burnt in effigy. But the Doctor, now fearless of his auto-da-fÉ, is also said to have determined on carrying the war into the enemy's quarters, and showing that every step which he has taken has been sanctioned by his denouncers; and that, instead of being the foolish and impudent intruder which the public have believed him to be, he has been actually only the submissive follower and ready agent of councils far enough removed from the Quirinal.

We shall advert to but one matter in addition, yet the most important of all. From the accession of Pio Nono, there has been a decisive change of the old Papal plan. For the last three hundred years, Popery, smitten by the Reformation, had limited its efforts to keeping itself in existence, the stern power of the military thrones having prohibited its excitement of the people. But times changed; the power of the multitude increased, the power of the monarchs diminished, and the appeal was now to be made to the multitude. Europe then saw, with sudden astonishment, a liberal Pope, and heard the sound of popular emancipation from the recesses of the Conclave. If the rash ambition of the King of Sardinia had not thrown Italy into war, and his shallow generalship turned the war into a flight, the plan of popular appeal would probably have made Popery the head of Red Republicanism. But the whole affair was managed as everything beyond the confessional is managed by monkery—and the Pope was glad to escape from the blaze which he had kindled with his own hasty hand.

His restoration by the French sword, drawn for republicanism in France and for despotism in Rome, has set the machinery in movement again; and we now see its first manufacture in the actual claim of supremacy in England. Whether its contemptuous repulse here will check its progress abroad, who shall say? But, that a conspiracy for the extinction of Protestantism exists in Europe; that the ten foreign cardinals were appointed to propagate the plan; and that it is to be defeated only by vigilance and principle, there can be no doubt in the mind of any rational being.

But, since we began this paper, two events have occurred, which, trifling as they may be as to the individuals concerned, give too clear an evidence of the spirit of Popery and public men to be wholly passed by.

That excellent paper, the Standard, thus briefly states the first: "In May 1845 the late Lady Pennant expressed to her parish minister (the Rev. Mr Briscoe) her intention to build a church near her residence, in Wales, for the use of her poor neighbours. This she also stated to her daughter, who promised to fulfil it. This daughter married Lord Fielding, and brought him a fortune, part of which, of course, was apparently pledged to the building of the church. On Lady Pennant's death, writes the Bishop of St Asaph to Lord Fielding—'You publicly declared that you purposed to bestow a large sum of money in founding a church, and all things belonging to it. You invited me and my clergy to join in laying the foundation. You seemed to understand it so. We certainly understood it so; and we received the Lord's Supper together, with this understanding.

"'Now, I must say, that I regard this as a promise made to me, and my clergy, as solemnly as it could be made on earth.'

"Lord Fielding," says the Standard, "sets about the building,—plain proof that he perfectly understood his duty. Before the completion of the church, however, his Lordship falls into the hands of Tractarians, who, as usual, deliver him over to Romanist priests, who furnish him with the miserable arguments, which, grounded on the two extraordinary notions, that what a man promises as a Protestant he is not bound to perform as a Papist, and that, no distinct fund having been appropriated in Lady Pennant's will, he is not bound to apply any whatever—finishes by saying, 'My duty appears clear to me, to devote that church which is being built at my own cost, and which yet remains mine, to the furtherance of God's truth, as I find he himself delivered it to his Holy Catholic Church.'"

So that the result of Lady Pennant's wish, and her money, left for a Protestant church, is the building of a Popish chapel! and the result of a Protestant bishop's laying the foundation, is the erection of a place for the mass and the worship of the Virgin Mary! We disdain comment on this transaction. But it is eminently Popish.

The other instance is the attendance of Mr Hawes, the Under Secretary of State, at a congratulatory public meeting in honour of Dr Wiseman's appointment as a cardinal, and his actually subscribing money to buy him a Red Hat.

The office of Under Secretary, though not one of much public consideration, and often given to persons of none whatever, is yet regarded as extremely confidential; and, in the instance of Mr Hawes, it has unusual weight, from his being the actual representative of the Colonial Secretary in the House of Commons, Lord Grey being in the House of Lords. But Mr Hawes is also understood to possess a confidence out of his Department, and to be on the most intimate terms with the Premier. Indeed, the admiration of the Under Secretary for the noble Lord, the delicate attention of generally escorting him into the House, and seldom being able to remain in it after it has lost the light of his Lordship's countenance—his ecstasy of admiration at every sentence which slips from the Premier's lips, and the fixedness of his eye on his Lordship's features during the sitting—have often excited the surprise, and occasionally the amusement, of the members of the Legislature. But that Mr Hawes should have attended a public meeting, or done any one act on earth in which he conceived it possible to have produced a frown on the noble Lord's brow—or, indeed, should do anything without a consciousness of the most PERFECT acquiescence in the most important quarter—was among the "grand improbabilities" of the age. But Mr Hawes did go to the meeting, and subscribed for what our ancestors called a "rag of Popery," and what their sons call one of its "mummeries."

On this subject a correspondent of the Morning Chronicle writes the following queries:—

"Can Lord John Russell be sincere in his new-born zeal against what he pronounces the 'mummeries of superstition,' when he allows one of his subordinates, Mr B. Hawes, M.P., to attend a meeting of 'Catholics of the London district,' for the purpose of moving a resolution," &c. He adds: "Let me ask his Lordship, is it true that his Under Secretary for the Colonies, besides speaking at the meeting, has publicly subscribed £10 towards procuring one of those said 'mummeries'—a Cardinal's hat—for Dr Wiseman?" To this, the only answer given by Mr Hawes is, that he declined signing the Popish resolutions, but that he spoke, and offered to give his tribute, &c., from friendship to the Doctor; which this Papist, however, graciously condescended to receive.

Now, if Mr Hawes were attending to his parental trade on this occasion, there would have been nothing to say, but that it showed the smartness of an expert trafficker. But, as a fragment of the Ministry, he had another character to sustain, and he ought to have been aware of the conclusions which would be drawn, by both Papists and Protestants, as to the degree of approval under which he might have acted.

The "Cardinal's hat," too, by no means mends the matter. If his friendship for Dr Wiseman must overflow to the amount of £10, could it have taken no less official shape? Might he not have made it up to the Doctor in teacups or teaspoons, in a dozen of pocket-handkerchiefs, or in an addition to his shoes and stockings? But the hat is a badge: it has the effect of a cockade. What if it is a thing of red stuff? What is a cockade?—a thing of ribbon—which, however, makes the difference between armies!

Without any particular respect for Mr Hawes' shrewdness, we cannot believe that he was unacquainted with the natural conclusions; nor do we believe that it can be passed over, when the day comes for national inquiry into the whole course of Papal politics in England for the last half-dozen years. Meanwhile, the spirit of the people is high, their determination is decided, and the time is at hand for a great restoration to the principles of England.