THE PROTESTANT.

We must commence this paper in somewhat of an apologetic strain for an error that remained uncorrected in our last Protestant.' It was written in the actual bustle of a complete removal to a different home; and after too cursory a view of Mr. Noel's unaccountable pamphlet. We fully purposed making in the proof sheets any correction that a closer examination might suggest: but very severe indisposition following immediately on the exertions and excitement of that removal baffled the attempt; and our pages were printed off, as they had been written, under the impression that Mr. Noel had advocated the endowment of Popery with the spoils of the Protestant Church, compulsorily seized by an unprincipled Government; whereas he merely proposes that the Protestant Church should generously step forward, like the patriotic suicide of old Rome, to propitiate hostile powers, and to ensure the prosperous tranquillity of a thoroughly heathenized land, by precipitating itself into the chasm that yawns so wide and so deep, and so sorely perplexes our Cabinet. Mr. Noel, whose undisguised leanings towards voluntaryism have rendered it long a marvel to many that he did not disestablish himself, now cheers on the Irish Church to take the first step in that work, and adduces many arguments in favour of the proceeding, which others may

be the less careful to answer, because, in one part or another of his publication, he has himself overturned every one of them.

We felt indignant, under the first impression, resulting from a hasty glance at his plan: our indignation is increased tenfold by that which a very careful and deliberate perusal has produced; and for this reason, that the battle between truth and falsehood is spoken of, and its probable issues determined, as though CHRIST had ceased to make the Gospel's cause his own-as though Antichrist had as good a prospect, of remaining Master of the field, exulting in the defeat of his opposers. is chance-medley: all calculated on the ground of human probabilities. Do we misrepresent Mr. Noel's work? Let the reader judge from the following extract :

All

'Or let us suppose that the untamed gallantry of the Orange and Tory powers shall still return to the warcry of "Equality or Repeal," the stiff and desperate determination of "No surrender," so that Sir Robert Peel, with the prospect before him of an Irish rebellion can neither avert it by the payment of the priests, because of our immoveable religious convictions, nor by the disestablishment of the Irish Church, because it would break up his party; it is clear that being thus excluded from the only sedatives which a statesman could apply to the passion of Ireland, he would be compelled to resign. What would then probably follow? No cabinet could possibly be formed on the "No surrender" principle: the Whigs must therefore return to power. But since all the evangelical Churchmen and Dissenters of the United Kingdom would, at all costs and hazards, oppose any ministry which would pay the priests, Lord John Russel could not take office on that

principle: nor would it be necessary. However much he may prefer his own principle of paying all the clergy to Mr. O'Connell's plan of paying none, his main principle, to which that preference might legitimately be sacrificed, is to do justice to Ireland. On that understanding he might honourably assume the government ; and the basis of this Administration would be, the separation of the Irish Church from the State. As the Catholics claim an equality, but lay no claim to the property of the Church, this measure would satisfy them; as the only well-principled method of averting civil war, all the earnest Protestants of England and Scotland would see it to be just and necessary; the free-traders would without difficulty give it their support; and nearly the whole body of the Whigs would consent to it. With this parliamentary support, the opposition being at the same time paralyzed by the resignation of Sir Robert Peel on the ground that he could not carry on the government on the opposite principle, Lord John would easily carry his measure; your Church would be disestablished against its will; and the Catholics would triumph in its defeat.'-(page 50.)

The opposition would be paralyzed.' 'Lord John would easily carry his measure.' 'The Catholics would triumph.' Such language would excite no surprise coming from the pen of a calculating worldling; it would be perfectly consistent, if used by Lord Brougham, Mr. Macaulay, or others of the infidel school whose oracular opinions on the subject Mr. Noel has collected, strengthened by their respective names in confirmation of his suppositions: but such is NOT the language beseeming an enlightened Christian, who, looking round on his own diminished and furiously assailed little party, stays himself upon the divine word, remembering

that the Lord of hosts is with them, the God of Jacob is their refuge.

Not to go farther back, into the inspired annals of deliverances miraculously vouchsafed to the Lord's people of old, we will recal to our reader's mind a fact connected with the stiff and desperate determination of 'No surrender,' in Ireland, and within little more than a century and a half back. On that stiff and desperate determination a few Protestant Boys of Derry barred the gates of their diminutive fortress against the Earl of Antrim, and his troops. How diminutive, how exposed, how utterly inadequate to two days' successful resistance that fortress must have been, none can imagine who have not paced the walls that yet stand, a memorial of what the Lord both can and will do for his confiding people. We have paced those walls; and we tell Mr. Noel that the stiff and desperate determination which manned them was far greater than is needed in the present juncture to maintain the cry, ay and the deepest principle too, of 'No Surrender.'

But to return to the facts: in a short time after Lord Antrim's repulse, no less a personage than the King of England appeared before the walls, to summon that sturdy garrison: he was quickly put to flight; for he came in the name, not of God, whom they worshipped, but of the pope, whom they, like us, abjured. Next, a famous Marshal of France, whose success in war, and specially in sieges, was so renowned that his name inspired terror in Europe, was dispatched, with a French army, to reduce the desperate defenders. On coming within view of the maiden city, the whole of which appeared but as a speck upon the crown of a hill, commanded by much higher elevations, wholly in the possession of the besiegers, the French Marshal was filled

with amazement : and, indignant at being sent to achieve so paltry a conquest, he swore an impious and disgusting oath that instead of carrying it by military assault, he would make his soldiers fetch it to him, stone by stone.

Stiff and desperate as ever, the Protestant garrison held out and after having for nine months baffled the utmost that the Irish Earl, the English King, and the French Marshal, with their legions could effect, they saw the mortified enemy finally retreat; and the cause of Protestantism, chiefly through their means, established on so firm a basis that it never more became endangered, till treachery in the camp appeared; and some apostatized from their nominal principles, and villainously betrayed the trust confided in them; and we, alas! were not wise enough to pursue the same determined plan with Wellington and Peel that the Derry men put into execution against their prototype, Governor Lundy.

At length, King William, the commissioned deliverer of these realms, in his triumphant progress through the country also saw Derry. And what said he, as his practised military eye took in the scene of a deliverance that surpassed the comprehension of man's wretchedly grovelling mind? He gazed upon it for a while, and then uttered these memorable words, 'Had there been a single soldier either within or without the walls, this place could never have been defended.' To adapt Mr. Noel's words to the occasion, 'Lord Antrim would easily have forced the gate, your city would have been captured, in spite of the apprentices, and the enemy would have triumphed in its defeat.'

But King William was wrong; as wrong here as Mr. Noel; there were soldiers, veteran soldiers, both without and within the gates; the secret that seemed