LORD CHURCHILL AND PROTESTANTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7788, 6 November 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

LORD CHURCHILL AND PROTESTANTS.

The Honorary secretary of the Scottish Protestant Alliance! the Rev. James Kerr, of Glasgow, on September 12 forwarded a reply to Lord R. Churchill's recent letter in answer to a remonstrance against, the appointment of a Roman Catholic as a Secretary of i*tate. The letter quotes declarations by Roman Catholic prelates, which lead to the conclusion that Roman Catholics should not be elevated to positions of power and trust in the British Empire. It then prooeeds:— "You have, my Lord, been exalted to a position of great influence in these realms, and you are expected to sustain the dignity of an Empire whose greatness has been achieved in large measure by the national recognition of Christianity and national submission to the blessed and only Potentate. And, my Lord, yon hare had a notable opportunity of directing the Imperial policy on these Scriptural lines and conforming it to the loftiest standard. The men who shape the destinies of such an Empire are not those who take part in exalting to placeß of power and trust the members of a politioo-ecolesias-tioal society, who subject their civil loyalty to a foreign master, whose predominance, as history attests, is fatal to the independence and freedom of any Empire. Rather they are those who, feeling their responsibility unto God, make every effort <8> have the nation sanctified by the influences of true religion, and to raise to office men of sterling Christian principle. You are well aware, my Lord, that the Throne and the Lord Chancellorship of England, and other high offices, are closed against Romanists. My Lord, in maintaining the principles and con elusions of oar letter, we claim to be the true friends of civil and religious liberty. To these liberties we maintain you are in this controversy a foe ; and in fidelity to the Governor among the nations, and deep concern for the lasting prosperity of these lands, we again sorrowfully place in your hards our deliberate protest against the elevation of Roman Catholics to places of power and trust in the British Empire." Lord Randolph Churchill, replying to this | letter, says that if the views of the directors of that society were pushed to a logical conclusion, they " would involve the repeal of I all those Acts of Parliament which have removed the political disabilities formerly imposed on Roman Catholics, and the reenactment of all those penal laws against oar Roman Catholic fellow-subjects which the va»t majority of the British people are anxious to forget." The Rev. James Pafcon, minister of St. Paul i, Glasgow, and a director of the Scottish Protestant Alliance, has written to his lordship stating :—" You have peuned an insolent reply to a respectful public docu menfe. You are now Cabinet Minister, but I observe with astonishment and regret that you have not laid aside those weapons of abuse and scorn with which you tomahawked your way to power. You seem to think it not unworthy of a minister of the Queen to describe a body of representative men as senseless and irrational for daring to differ from you on a matter of public policy. It is a national calamity when men pitchforked into a high position are destitute of decent manners." • It is onething to tear opponents and growl over them like the bulldog of politics. It is another to be a British statesmac." Mr. Paton after this preface argued that the Alliance founded their protest on the same grounds as those which exclude Roman Catholics from the throne.