"the Chartists," or whatever else they may please to designate themselves. These gentlemen are of the class which has furnished, during the last few years, the British legion in Spain, the Calthorpe Street meeting in London, the "Patriots" in Canada, besides divers other practical illustrations of the modern theory of freedom.

The third was the gathering of factory-owners from Manchester, Leeds, and Glasgow, whose errand was to bully, if possible, the landlords and agriculturists out of their legitimate protection for British industry.

The first of these bodies assembled in a temporary building on the site of the late chapel of St. Stephen's; the second at the British Hotel, Cockspur Street; the third at Brown's Hotel, Palace Yard.

At first sight, the old "Collective Wisdom" seemed to be in some danger of being overridden by its more juvenile rivals. But, fortunately, the one of these bodies, having plenty of pluck, had withal no money; and the other, having plenty of money, had no pluck and thus, between the two, there seems a considerable chance that the old-fashioned House of Commons may yet live through it all.

:

The Patriot Parliament, or National Convention, has certainly shewn "great spirit." A vote was passed, requesting the House of Commons to hold a conference with the Convention, at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, to which, we believe, up to this moment, the House has not been able to gather resolution enough to send an answer. In another matter, "the Convention" has clearly over-crowed "the House." A certain Newport magistrate, of Lord John Russell's own manufacture, had given the said Lord John a pretty considerable"rowing," in an official correspondence. The House of Commons asked for copies of these letters; when

Lord John looked silly, and took time to consider of it. Mr. Frost himself being a member of the Convention, that assembly requested him to furnish copies. He laid them "on the table" without hesitation. They were read amidst loud cheers; and the unanimous thanks of the Convention were voted to Mr. Frost for "the spirited rebuke" administered by him to Lord John.

Unhappily, however, for the liberties of Europe, but happily for the House of Commons, this courageous and enterprising body suffers under a dreadful lack of" the sinews of war." Were it not for this single circumstance, it is impossible to tell what important events might not be anticipated.

The third and remaining body is now, alas! defunct. Opening the campaign with an ample supply of means, and the most prodigious anticipations, the cotton-lords have shewn themselves about the most pluckless set of fellows that ever undertook a great enterprise. They blundered in their first attempt, and with one failure their whole courage evaporated.

Instead of commencing with a proposition which might have united all parties except the agriculturists, they offered the preposterous request, to be heard by counsel at the bar. It was immediately shewn, that this would merely involve the House of Commons in an interminable inquiry, standing in the way of all other business. Scores of men, who would have voted for the general proposition, that the present system of the corn-laws required revision, voted against them on this. The house divided, 361 against 172, or more than two to one; and in six-andthirty hours after, the routed factoryowners had broken up their parliament, adjourned their meetings sine die, and set off back to Manchester, some small matter wiser, perhaps, than they came. And so ended Parliament the third.

WE now proceed to submit to our readers the views and impressions of discerning Protestants, on the progress and pretensions of the Romish Church in this country. The following statement is from a speech of the Rev. H. Seymour. His testimony, delivered at a meeting in London, in May 1837, is important on two grounds. First, the rev. gentleman came to England so penetrated with a sense of the utter wickedness of the principles of the Church of Rome, from great experience, that he publicly declared he would not, and could not, believe that any proselytism from our population to that communion had taken place. condly, Mr. Seymour has drawn his conclusions from patient and personal inquiry:

Se

"I had been living in Ireland-had been an eye-witness of the sufferings and persecutions of Protestants there-had taken part in the many controversies and religious discussions that pervaded the land; and I had seen in every case the expanding principle of Protestantism developing its power; I had seen the gradual opening of mind among the Roman Catholic population-the increasing subjection of their understanding to the Holy Scriptures, and their consequent abandonment of the errors of the Church of Rome, notwithstanding the fiercest persecution. As I was in the daily habit of thus wituessing the falling of the Church of Rome and the rising of Protestantism on its ruins in Ireland, I was not disposed to believe that in England-in Protestant

VOL. XIX. NO. CXII.

and Bible-reading England-an opposite state of things could possibly exist. I did not believe that while I saw that the Romanists were becoming Protestants in Ireland, the Protestants should be turning Romanists in England. I had known in Ireland one parish where there were one hundred another where there were two hundred-another where there were three hundred conversions from Romanism, and I would not believe that in England a process of change of an opposite kind could possibly be in progress. There are many in this meeting against whom I have argued this assertion, and they then stated that I would yet discover that my views were erroneous, and that popery was increasing in England as rapidly as it was decreasing in Ireland. 1 do now freely confess, sir, that I was wrong in my views-that I have entirely changed my opinions as to the fact, and I do now propose to lay before this meeting the character of the evidence upon which I have proceeded. There are three classes of evidence which have influenced my opinions on this point.

"The first is the information I received personally from the local clergy in va rious parts of England. I have made it my business, both in my correspondence and in my personal interviews, to inquire into the alleged increase of Romanism in their respective vicinities; and I have learned from them that, though there has been perhaps some exaggeration, yet that the fact is true to a melancholy extent. I shall endeavour to describe this species of evidence by an individual parish. Hav ing visited the incumbent, I inquired into the supposed increase of Romanists;

DD

and he told me that the number had undoubtedly increased. I asked, whether the increase was owing to the influx of Irish Romanists? He said that it was not. I asked, whether it might be ascribed to the natural increase of popula tion? He answered in the negative; and stated that the increase arose from proselytism, arising in the first place partly from intermarriages, and partly from independent proselytism. I then visited the curate of the parish, and he gave me precisely the same information, only more in detail, adding the names of the individual proselytes as well as the means by which their proselytism seemed to have been accomplished. Now, this kind of evidence comes frequently before me; and as none can be such competent informants as the local clergy, so I have given much credence to the information I have thus received from them. A large number of these proselytes have come under my own personal observation. I shall state an instance. I was very lately at a public meeting, and an individual came forward publicly to defend the Church of Rome. He had been a Protestant, and is now a Romanist; and on that occasion came forward as the champion of the Church of Rome. A second individual in the body of the meeting made the same avowal. They had both of them been proselytised some time before. I shall state another instance. While preparing, on a very late occasion, in the vestry to read the Evening Service of our Church, a respectable female entered, and requested the prayers of the congregation might be asked for one who was in great affliction. Upon inquiring the particulars, she replied, that her husband had been that day formally baptized into the Church of Rome! He was the son of a Baptist minister. I will add another example. A gentleman of some character and property has become so zealous a convert, that he is at this moment building a small but beautiful chapel, to be dedicated to the service of the Church of Rome. All these are instances that have come before me during the last few weeks; and I state them merely as illus trations of the system that is prevailing, to an awful extent, throughout the country. I hold in my hand a letter, stating the establishment of an infant school to teach the little children of our poor to lisp with their first accents the principles of Romanism. I hold likewise in my hand a letter, apprizing me of land having been obtained for the building a monastery to contain one hundred and forty monks of the order of La Trappaye, we are to see a mighty monastery of one hundred and forty Trappists in the very heart of England!

I

"But besides this class of evidence, there is another which deserves our notice, namely, the statements and views of the members of the Church of Rome. say nothing of the statements lately made by one of no ordinary mould, that there was scarcely a Romish pulpit in Europe that did not ring with the expectancy of the fall of the Church of England; but I would remind you of their books circulated in this country; they go so far as to assure us, that the conversion of England in ancient times from heathenism to Christianity was not so rapid as her present conversion from Protestantism to Romanism!

I will state a fact that will illustrate this better than a thousand arguments. A most pious and devoted clergyman in the south of England was some time since publicly attacked and challenged to a controversy by a Romish priest, who extensively circulated a pamphlet against this clergyman throughout his parish; an answer was written to that pamphlet, and printed, and sent to the spot; but what was my surprise when I received a letter from this very clergyman, stating, that owing to the number of Romanists in his parish owing to the influence of a nunnery over a large portion of the popula tion and owing, further, to the fear of a Roman Catholic proprietor in the vicinity, no individual would dare to circulate the defence of Protestantism in reply to the priest! It actually became necessary to employ a total stranger from twelve miles distant to circulate it! This has actually occurred within a very few months, not in Ireland, but in Eugland! Yet men talk as if Romanism was not increasing in this country. I have myself seen the proselytes she has made; I have had converse with some of them; I have ar gued with some of them; and, therefore, whatever be the experience of others, I do know of a surety that there are infinitely more proselytes than is generally believed.

"It would be impossible for me here to detail the means by which this process of proselytism is conducted. It would occupy too much time to enter on its developement; I shall, therefore, only say thus much upon this point-the Church of Rome is publishing and circulating a vast body of controversial books and tracts-she is sparing no expense, and pausing at no sacrifice, to secure their circulation among Protestants. At the doors of our churches-at places of all public meetings, they circulate these tracts: even this day they are circulating at the door of Exeter Hall, and one of them is at this moment in my hands. Besides this circulation of tracts, they are publishing several magazines, with

the view of disseminating their peculiar religious opinions amidst the light and ephemeral writings of such periodicals; and this very month they have commenced one on the largest scale that has been yet attempted. And in addition to all these means they have brought for. ward their ablest and best learned controversialists, who are delivering regular courses of lectures against Protestantism, not only through the country, but also in London. I will not trust myself with speaking of the results of all these efforts, nor of the peculiar machinery employed in connexion with their schools, with the view of proselytising the children of the peasantry; but I will say, as a minister of the Established Church, that it is a sad and melancholy fact that nothing is doing to check this system of proselytism-that no effort whatever is made to stay the flood of Romanism, save what has been done by this very society for promoting the religious principles of the Reformation, and yet that this society is permitted to languish under difficulties, unpatronised and unsupported-nay, looked coldly on by some, and frowned at by others."

In a sermon preached for the Reformation Society, at St. John's Chapel, London, in 1834, by the Rev. Edward Tottenham, an able champion of Protestantism, the following statement occurs:

"Forty years ago it would have been difficult to observe a Roman Catholic place of worship in the kingdom. In Britain there are now upwards of 500. Since 1824 to 1834 there has been an increase of upwards of seventy chapels in England, and since 1829 there has been an increase of twenty-three in Scotland. And let it be remembered, from the peculiar mode of attendance at Roman Catholic worship much less accommodation is required for Romanists than for the same number of Protestants, for there is a constant succession of congregations in each chapel, who just come in for the purpose of hearing mass. In this way, for example, there is attached to Chelsea chapel alone, in this metropolis, a congregation of nearly 6000-to the chapel of Bermondsey one of upwards of 5000 and to the chapel in the London Road one of nearly 15,000. We also point to the instances of conversion that sometimes meet our view, thirty, forty, and even seventy, adult converts being sometimes publicly received by the vicars-apostolic into the bosom of the Roman Church. Did time permit, I would give you dates and places for what I have now asserted,"

The following extracts, which might be extended, are from provincial and other newspapers :

"There never was a time, since England became a Protestant country, when the proselyting system of the Roman Catholics was more strenuously acted on than at the present day. New chapels are built; large and stately houses are bought, or erected, for Popish seminaries and colleges; preaching in the open air is resorted to; tracts are widely distributed. At length resistance has become, not a matter of choice, but of necessity.”— Leicester Journal, June 1836.

"But we must not suppose that these varied efforts of the Christian Protestant Church, scattered up and down as it is in Europe, have passed unperceived by the Roman Catholic Church. All the publications and printed correspondences of Protestants are carefully examined by the Society for the Propagation of Romanism; and it can be perceived most clearly from their articles, that every new fact recorded by Protestants, as occurring in any country, is examined by its emissaries. The society is at the present moment not only publishing the Anti-Protestant · originally a monthly, but now a weekly publication but it has just put to press a new papal work in English, to be published, as well as printed, in Paris, for the purpose of circulation among the English, Irish, and Americans, on the continent."-Editor of L'Europe Protestant, Sept. 1838.

--

"It is very easy to see that Rome occupies a position from which she can extend her ravages into England with frightful rapidity. The Jesuits have drained Austria of much of her Protestant and best population. In Geneva, it has been discovered that there is an open and easy path from Neology to Romanism. The great proportion of the schools of France is under the yoke of the priests. In Belgium, the papal power is paramount. In Holland, one of the most Protestant parts of continental Europe, the priests are gaining ground, much in the same way as in England; and whether the results shall be disas. trous or otherwise, the untiring exertions of the Church of Rome, more especially in this country, are too obvious to be denied or regarded with indifference."Ibid.

"The first stone of a new Popish chapel was laid, with great form and ceremony, at Uttoxeter, amid a vast concourse of people."- Chester Chronicle, May 1838.

“On Wednesday last, the new Popish church at Ipswich was consecrated with

great pomp. After the ceremony of consecration was over, a numerous choir, assisted by the band of the 4th Dragoon Guards, in full regimentals, who were sent by their colonel for this occasion, performed Mozart's mass in C."-Suffolk Chronicle, December 1838.

"The Bury town-council passed a resolution against two clergymen of that town, for continuing to preach against the tenets of the Roman Catholic faith. The Rev. Messrs. Hastid and Haggit have written to the corporation, stating their sorrow at differing from the council in opinion; but as the funds were left distinctly for preaching sermons every quarter, demonstrating the errors of the Church of Rome, they, with every respect for the professors of Romanism, and forbearance toward their particular and conscientious belief, felt that they were bound to preach the sermons on the same subject as heretofore. Mr. Eagle, on the meeting of the council, expressed his disapproval of the interference of the reverend gentlemen upon the subject; declared their letter to be a direct insult to their Roman Catholic brethren; and said that, as the money payable by Lord Rivers came through the hands of the council, which had also the appointment of the preachers, he advised that body to prevent the offensive preaching."-Ibid.

The following remarkable testimony is from a well-known author, signalised, it is true, by liberal opinions, but of unquestionable industry in collecting facts-viz., Mr. Grant.

"The Roman Catholics are rapidly increasing in London, as well as in every other part of the country. A chapel was erected at St. John's Wood, two or three years ago, by two maiden ladies. They gave 10,000l. for this purpose. I was present at the opening, or, as it is called, consecration, of this chapel. The Roman Catholic bishop of London, assisted by another bishop, officiated on this occasion. There were no fewer than thirty-two priests present, all in full priestly dress. But my chief object, in referring thus particularly to the erection and opening of this new Roman Catholic chapel, is to mention that the unusual display made on this occasion-for it was admitted to have surpassed any thing before witnessed in this country-was in a great measure caused by the high spirits which the Romish priesthood are in at the rapid progress which their religion is making in England. Dr. Griffiths, who preached on the occasion, after having told the two ladies who built the chapel that they had thereby purchased a right to

heaven, proceeded to speak in exulting terms of the extent to which Catholicism prevailed on the Continent, and of the rapidity with which the people of England were returning to the religion of their forefathers. And this joy at the rapid strides which this country is again making towards Popery is universally shared by the priests and intelligent laity. There is not a Sunday in which it is not exultingly asserted, in hundreds of Catholic pulpits in Great Britain and Ireland, that the Church of Rome is destined to triumph over and trample in the dust the Protestantism of England.

What I complain of is, that Roman Catholics have, in almost every instance, received the lucrative and influential appointments which have been made in Ireland since the appointment of the present administration. To be a Protestant in Ireland is precisely the same thing as if one had an inscription written on his forehead, Ineligible to any government office under the Marquess of Normanby.'"-Travels in Town by the Author of "Random Recollections of the Lords and Commons," "Great Metropolis," &c. &c.

It is right to add, to the above extract, that this writer's census of the Roman Catholics in Loudon is utterly incorrect. He rates them at 26,000, which is at least 100,000 too few. There are 15,000 connected with the chapel in the London Road, 5000 with Lincoln's Inn Fields, and 6000 with Moorfields. These three chapels have congregations, equal at least to Mr. Grant's estimate of the whole Roman Catholics of London. There are at least 200,000 Irish in London. Ninety per cent of these are Papists. St. Giles's parish alone will furnish twice 26,000.

"

Progress of Popery.-Nor would it be foreign to the purpose of our meetings, if I were to point out the progress of Rome, and to call upon you, as ordained defenders of the faith, to mark well the signs of the times in this respect. I am not prepared, indeed, to state that there has been any material increase in the members of this church within this diocess. It is true a few additional chapels have been built, if I am correctly informed, in both the counties; but this, in itself, is not a certain test of their success in proselytism, and of the augmentation of their numbers. It has ever been the policy of the Romanists to let the supply precede the demand; to let the chapel wait for the worshipper, not the worshipper for the chapel. Do I blame them in this matter? I blame them not. The children of this world are wiser in