WHEN our last Number was issued, the kingdom was in a ferment from one end to the other, on the question of Papal Aggression. We then endeavoured to give a concise narrative of the events which had led to such an outburst of feeling, and we now continue our narrative, premising as before, that we cannot find space to do more than draw the outline, or give the main features of a struggle, which may yet prove one of the most momentous in which this nation has ever been engaged.

Our record came down to the end of the year, and the Meetings then in progress mul. tiplied; whilst the excitement also increased as the time for the meeting of Parliament drew near.

The unsatisfactory replies to the addresses of the Queen, led to the general suspicion that Lord John Russell's Protestant policy found little favour with some of his Ministerial Colleagues, and fears even prevailed that he would altogether succumb, and so remain passive.

This disgrace, however, was prevented by the voice of the nation; and when Parliament at length assembled, Lord John Russell, after a splendid oratorical display, in which he unmasked the intolerable ambition of the Church of Rome, and threw the light of investigation on her past career of unceasing presumption and arrogance, obtained leave to bring in a bill to meet the Papal Aggression. The division in the House was 395, against 63; a majority which surprised both friends and foes, and appears especially to have struck the Pope with consternation, dissipating so cruelly his dreams of the vast increase of Romanism in England.

In accordance with this decisive preponderance in the House of Commons, has been the number of addresses sent up to the Queen which, three or four weeks since, amounted to 3,645 addresses, with 1,000,000 signatures! An Irish Member in the House, blinking this form of petition, stated that the petitions to the House of Common against the bill, were double those for it; with what good faith our readers can now judge. Any one reading his statement, might suppose him to have meant the total number of petitions.

The crisis was one of extreme anxiety, not only politically (which does not fall within our province), but especially with reference to the Anti-papal Bill. For Lord Stanley, the leader of the Protectionists, had vehemently denounced the measure, and given his verdict for a Committee of enquiry: to meet, we suppose, on Smithfield or in the Lollard's Tower, and summon the shadow of Ridley and his fellow martyrs to bear witness as to the character of Popery. This would have been to shelve the matter altogether. On the other hand, the small party known by the name of Peelites-men of much practical knowledge, but imbued partly with Tractarianism, partly with utter indifference to religious affairs-were discovered to be totally opposed to any legislation whatever on the subject.

A fortnight of anxious suspense, however, terminated with the failure of Lord Stanley to form an Administration, and with Lord John's return to office with all his colleagues, after one or two unsuccessful attempts on his part to coalesce with the Peelites-attempts rendered futile by his resolution to uphold the Protestantism of the nation.

Great were the rejoicings at Rome when he fell-greater the consternation when he returned to power.

But the result of these events became apparent in the abandonment by Lord John of the second and third clauses of his Bill-an alteration which is said by some parties to render the whole perfectly nugatory; whilst others, with those conflicting statements which have perplexed us throughout the whole business, declare that the first clause will prove to contain the essence of all the rest.

However mutilated, the Bill was yet the object of furious attack on the part of the Romish members, aided by the Peelites-the Manchester party-and the extreme Radicals, or universal suffrage men. The hostility of the first class is consistent and intelligible-that of the Peelites appeared to be founded on a Latitudinarian policy, strangely mingled with the highest fancies of the Romanizers-that of the Manchester and Hume sections of the House we do not hesitate to attribute to feelings of enmity towards the Church of England and to religious establishments altogether.

The debate on the second reading of the Bill has been protracted by all the tactics of virulent partizanship; but on Tuesday, the 25th, the House of Commons again vindicated its title to the inheritance of our national Protestantism, and the motley group of opponents could only muster 93 votes against 438.

The Bill now goes into Committee, where two or three amendments will be proposed, mainly tending to make the Bill more stringent; one in particular, to restore the abandoned clauses.

It is difficult to forsee the result of these motions-probably the division will run very close, as the Government must throw itself on the opposing side, and the officials of a Government are, of themselves, a numerous body. On this, however, we will not now enlarge, but propose to notice, briefly, the objections most generally urged, whether against the Bill alone, or against legislation on the subject altogether.

First, then. We are told that the people take no interest in the question, and do not desire Legislation on it. This plea is simply false; and what is more, the parties who use it

know it to be so. A more general expression of national feeling cannot be elicited on any subject whatever-we challenge the proof.

Secondly. We are told that no Legislation is necessary-that there has been no aggression-that the act of the Pope has no effect but over Romanists, and not over them in temporal things. To this we reply, that the Church of Rome claims every baptized person as her subject, and if she leaves the claim in abeyance, it is only through inability to enforce it. Cardinal Wiseman, therefore, is right as regards pretensions, when he says, "WE GOVERN THE COUNTIES OF MIDDLESEX, &c.." He looks on every baptized man, woman, or child, in these Counties as lawfully under his control, and his appointment as Archbishop over them was a fresh and palpable proclamation of the claim. The attempted distinction between temporal and spiritual matters we will notice presently.

Thirdly. We are told that such repressive legislation is inconsistent with our past acts, and our national encouragement of Romanism. We beg to deny that there has been any national encouragement of Popery at all! Governments have endowed Maynooth, salaried Colonial Popish Bishops, and frowned on Protestantism, but the whole tenour of these acts has been against national opinion. Governments nursed the frozen viper indeed, and now they feel its sting!

Fourthly. It is loudly asserted that legislation on the subject is altogether futile. "You may pass your Bill, but it will be a dead letter, you will never dare to put it in force." Dr. Doyle threatens an interference by the Continental powers-and Sir James Graham stoops to frighten us with the bugbear of an Irish Rebellion, to end again, we suppose, in a fight with a dozen policemen and a skulk in a cabbage garden.

Englishmen do not understand this argument. If the act be faulty we must have anotherthe Romanists have passed the Rubicon-ascendency, not toleration, is their aim, and one Church or the other must be paramount.

Fifthly. We are, lastly, accused of persecution, and on this head we wish our readers particularly to satisfy their minds. For this objection is one of great effect, and numbers of men, firm in their own secret opinions, quail from all action rather than expose themselves to the taunt of exhibiting a persecuting intolerant spirit. We speak advisedly when we say that multitudes yield to this fear what they would never yield to anythreat, nor abandon at the risk of any suffering.

We deny then, altogether, that the freedom of religious opinion is at all interfered with by

compelling the Romanists of London to call Dr. Wiseman, Bishop of Melipotamus, instead of Archbishop of Westminster. It is clear that he is perfectly able, with the former title, to exercise every one of those spiritual functions which are necessary for the pastoral superintendence of his Romish flock. No one ever sought to interfere with his government of them; and as to refusing him a title which, (how. ever impotent at present) involves the claim to authority over the whole population of London -to call this persecution is to confound all ideas of language and common sense.

The one great truth should ever be borne in mind, that there is no real distinction in Romanism between temporal and Spiritual things. Her Priests mingle completely in society, and are keenly alive to all possible chances of promoting the interests of the Church. What more temporal than the dis position of a man's property? Yet two extraordinary cases have lately come to light (providentially we believe) to prove that there is no object on the face of the globe more essential to the Romish Church than money-and that, in the pursuit of it, she puts forth all her authority so as to invest the disposal of property with a direct religious bearing-tells the young heir or the dying testator that it is "for the good of the Church," and the matter becomes at once invested with a Spiritual aspect, and one in which the authority of the Church must be obeyed under the highest peril.

While Religion concerns only a man's state before God, no power on earth has a right to

invade the heart-but as soon as Religion affects (as all true religion must) a man's conduct towards others, making him (according to the tenets of his faith) just or unjust to them, tolerant or intolerant, true or faithless; then, we say, to pronounce that a man must be left to carry out his religious views without let or hindrance, and to brand all attempts to limit his action as persecution, is neither more nor less than to break up the very foundation of all society; and, under the cloke of a pretended Religion, to trample down all law and justice, and leave every dearest interest of man open to the unrestrained assaults of pestilent error, and ungovernable fanaticism.

Far be it from us to wind one chain or to rivet one fetter on a deluded Romanist, but when, in virtue of his religion, he asserts the right (be it impotent as it may) to consign our bodies to the flames of the executioner, and our souls to hell-to ride roughshod over the law and institutions of our country and our Church-to haunt the dying bed, and wring property from an unwilling hand-to rob the rightful heir-to lure the young and inex perienced within the irrevocable spell of a Convent-to prohibit men from attending Protestant service, and compel even Protestants to be contented to worship in holes and corners-we say when this is perpetrated in the name of religion, we can but rise in indignant assertion of our rights, and proclaim, that, however Rome may have deluded herself, England is PROTESTANT and England is FREE.

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