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than his constitutional rights, rights secured (I cannot say to him, but to the Protestant subjects of this nation) by his Catholic ancestors, the wise and spirited framers of Magna Charta, of trial by jury, and the representative system? and what can be more iniquitous than to defraud him of those rights, because Dr. Southey chooses to call him idolatrous and superstitious. Let a Poet-Laureate of England, a Prebendary of Durham, or a Bishop of Winchester proclaim us to be idolators, and a hundred and twenty millions of intellectual beings, endowed with will, memory, and understanding,occupying the most civilized portions of the globe, -justly priding themselves upon the purity of their religion, and on the entire direction of their worship to the only One, True, Holy, Eternal, and Immutable God, hurl back the accusation with indignant defiance! If these associates in the work of libel be incapable of reflecting a ray of that light which is breaking in so fast upon the world, and if they have not the generosity to do us justice by advocating the cause of truth, at least let them cease their calumny; and in a very short time prejudice will subside, bigotry will resign her sway, and the triumph of civil and religious liberty will be, at length, achieved.

The last debate upon the Catholic question furnished a lamentable instance of misrepresentation in a quarter from which it was least expected. It

was asserted, with much parade of solemn and momentous accusation against the most unimpeachable prelacy in the world, that they were guilty of the most audacious impiety in cancelling a precept from the Decalogue; and it was at least insinuated, that they did so in order to flatter their favourite propensities to idolatry. Mr. Peel, for this purpose, quoted from an abridgment of our catechism, in which, as a purely elementary work, the heads only of each commandment are given, when he could easily have found a hundred others in which they are recited at full length; one even being produced in the house that very night. As to the ridiculous charge of curtailing the commandments, by dividing them as we do, it is utterly without foundation. We give the first and second together, and divide the last into two. The consequence is, that, in an abridgment, the heads only being given, what Protestants consider the second commandment is omitted; but then it must be remembered that this second commandment is merely an explanation of the first, and necessarily comprised in it in substance. It is astonishing that a man of Mr. Peel's character and reputation for fair dealing, should condescend to use misrepresentation when he finds argument fail him. But it only shews the extent of his delusion, and how fitted his mind is to receive impressions contrary to truth, reason, and common sense,

when his favourite prejudices are to be cherished. If that delusion only affected the individual, we should lament it, without presuming to correct him; but when the delusion of an individual stands between the happiness of millions, and that individual is the champion of a party opposed to the best interests of the empire, then indeed it is a delusion which ought to be exposed to the whole world.

()" We know that the Decalogue consisted of ten commandments; we find in it fourteen precepts; the question is, how they are to be reduced into the ten classes which form the ten commandments? In the Hebrew and other oriental versions, and in the early Vulgates, there is no classification of the ten commandments: how they should be classed, was an early subject of dispute in the Christian Church. St. Augustin recommended the classification now used by the Catholic Church: from his time till the Reformation it was generally adopted. The early reformers made a new division of the precepts, by separating the first commandment from the second, and blending the ninth and tenth into one; but the Decalogue remained the same.

"This was fully explained by Dr. Lingard on the Durham Controversy, and by the Irish Prelates in the examinations before the Committee on Irish Affairs. How then can the charge be now gravely made?"-Extract from the Catholic Miscellany for May, 1827.

"In the division of the Decalogue, the Christian Churches are not agreed. That of England, and the whole of the Calvinists, with Josephus, make two distinct

I will cite another illustration in point, both as a proof of the blind fury of our opponents, and of the ignorance to which it is to be attributed; and as enabling me to present to the reader an eloquent and argumentative appeal to his fellow-countrymen, from my valued friend and relative, the present secretary to the British Catholic Association. -See APPENDIX, No. III.

Neither can I refrain from referring the reader to

precepts of verses 3 and 7, Exodus, xx.; whereas, the Roman Catholics, and the Lutherans, divide with Saint Austin, and make one commandment, of what the former make two; but to keep the number of ten, they split what in the other division is deemed the ninth. Every one who looks into Walton's Polyglott may see that the command not to make sculptilia, neque omnem similitudinem, &c. neque adorare ea, is retained in the Latin Vulgate; and surely, as to the division, it is of so little importance, that we may wonder it ever could beget a controversy. In the English church, not a single word is said about the interdict to the Jews against making or worshipping graven images. Nor, through the whole of our Catechism, is there any caution introduced against the practice of the Church of Rome. I am not then warranted in arraigning the sincerity of the Roman belief, or the uprightness of their intentions, at all events. I should be ASHAMED of urging against them any FALSE accusations of disingenuous omission, or unauthorized arrangement in the Decalogue."-Parr's Characters of C. J. Fox, vol. ii. page 129.

another and a very flagrant instance of misrepresentation, from the mouth of a distinguished member of the upper House, which, though of ancient date, I consider to be of very considerable importance, as tending to exemplify the dispositions of mind of those individuals in the legislature, who have so long succeeded in making us the victims of their delusion.-See APPENDIX, No. IV.

EMANCIPATION is no longer a question between two parties in the state:(") it is a question between

()"This question had, within the last twenty years, risen from a state of comparative insignificance to one of paramount importance. It was now the question of the empire; the question which divided the people as well as the Parliament; a question which had not only divided, but had broken up, and would break up, Cabinets and Administrations. Look at the effects of the Penal Laws in this country; they had destroyed that friendly intercourse and those social habits which were, perhaps, not less essential to private and domestic comfort, than to the well-being of the community at large. They kept up a perpetual excitation and ferment in the public mind-they rendered property insecure they prevented the introduction of capital sufficient to develope the great and hitherto dormant resources of this fine and fertile country. And to their operation alone could be attributed those occasional bursts of public commotion, which are produced by rapacity and oppression on the one hand, and by poverty and despair on the other."

(Extract from Lord Killeen's excellent speech at the public dinner, so deservedly given to that patriotic nobleman, by the friends of civil and religious liberty.)

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