NEWS OF THE WEEK.
=NO-POPERY has now attained fall swing throughout the land. If 'the tumult is troublesomely swelled beyond reasonable proportions, the chief Minister may reflect that his too clever letter gave the :cue to exaggeration. No doubt, it is very offensive in the eyes of Sincere Protestants to see the ,Cardinal Archbishop of -Westminster addressing his Roman Catholic congregation as if their limited sect were the people of England; ignoring the Sovereign, the Church, &the State, the whole institutions of the country. But this counter- Alt of judicial blindness is not only an old habit of the Roman -Church, it is also a trick of self-aggrandizement common enough - !This may prove rather perplexing, though 'the agitators do not much' trouble their heads about it at this early day. It is scarcely manners to hint at the bill in the midst of the feast. One naïve 'gentleman, " Armiger " by name, suggests that the Queen should .issue a proclamation forbidding those whom it may concern to bear :titles conferred by a foreign potentate. This really seems the most practical suggestion yet made in the sense of the agitators. It would look rather small. The reprobated designations are as much names of offices as titles; indeed more so, since as titles they .
-can only be current by courtesy,, and have no sterling value with :the public at large. After such a proclamation, Dr. Ifflathoine would be the Bishop—that is to say, the overseer of the Roman Catholics who happen to reside within certain boundaries round --Birmingham and Nottingham; but the Royal authority would prevent his calling himself so. Of course he could not help other , people calling him so, any more than the Bishops of Ireland. could 'before they were recognized by the Lord-Lieutenant; when the -only distinction they assumed was to put a cross before their :names, like persons who cannot write. . Parliament will pass any law the Queen may desire or her Min- ister propose: but the law must have penal sanctions—will the Premier pat the Papist Bishops in the stocks if they prove contu- macious ? Then, the excitable and priest-led population, "the numerous Irish immigrants in London and elsewhere," for whom Lord John was willing to extend the "ecclesiastical system" of Rome in this country, must taunt for something when the new penal law comes to be enforced :'the rout of the Protestants at the Birkenhead pronouncement this week reminds us of that element in the problem. Ireland itself—the standing "difficulty" with every Government—is not to be overlooked: at least we believe Lord. Clarendon confronts the Irish aspeets of the question with an anxious not to say anaemia' countenante: Lord John Russell's letter was a clearer move in the political 'genie; but, looking a little way beyond the immediate advantage [LATEST EDITION.] With all states somewhat low in the scale of power and a- ;ten. Such states are arrogant, partly because they do not know -what is higher than themselves, partly because they have a weak :sluinking from the knowledge of it. This half-ludicrous trait, therefore, is not one which needs cause a greet nation to put itself in a fluster. Nevertheless, our great nation is in a fluster,—its clergy, who tare meeting in dietriets and addressing their bishops, and its _bishop& who are addressing .their clergy; its pillars of the state„ like Earl Fitzwilliam and Earl Fitzhardinge, who are stimulating the people at town meetings and county meetings; its Dissenters, 'like the_Xesleyans, who think that absolute toleration ought to - Slraw the line at Roman, Catholics; its people of every class, who, in dilly setting forth their fervour, are calling upon her Most Gra- 'pious Majesty Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, " Dei ,brati5." and (no end of flings at Mr. Shell's unhappy florin!) De- fender of the Faith. But fruit will be expected in due season: .after this abundant showering of addresses: a practical- reply will :be expected; and her Majesty will turn to Lord John Russell with 'the question, " What is to be done ?" -14114-0Z17 0! I
of a rally for the sesidotiSne4,44 its risks and draw- , o
