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:—