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THE BRITISH

PROTESTANT.

No. LXI.-JANUARY, 1850.

BRITISH REFORMATION SOCIETY.*

MEETING AT CHELTENHAM.

A MEETING was held this morning at the Town Hall, Regent Street, for the purpose of stating the objects and advocating the claims of the British Society for Promoting the Religious Principles of the Reformation. The room was crowded by deeply interested listeners. Amongst the gentlemen on the platform we noticed the Rev. Sir R. Wolseley, Bart., Rev. Dr. Cumming, Rev. John Browne, LL.B., Rev. J. F. S. Gabb, and the Rev. S. Westbrook : Colonel Hutchinson, Captain Schreiber, C. T. Cooke, Esq. and J. B. Clarke, Esq.

The Rev. J. BROWNE, Rector of Trinity Church, was called to the chair. He commenced the proceedings with prayer, and then said, he had but one simple duty to perform in the discharge of his office as chairman, namely to announce the object of the meeting, which was to discuss the Religious Principles of the Reformation. He had to regret the absence of the Rev. Mr. Blakeney, the indefatigable advocate of the Society's claims and principles. He was expected that morning, and he could only have been kept away by some mistake as to the time of the railway trains. He had one thing to say before calling on their friend Dr. Cumming,-which was, that a gentleman, a member of his own congregation who had recently been to Ireland, and saw how Romanism

From the Cheltenham Journal, November 29, 1849. VOL. VI.

A

worked in that country, was most anxious to make a statement to the meeting. The particulars of what he saw there had been related to him (the chairman) and had deeply interested him. He had no doubt but that it would interest them. The gentleman to whom he alluded was an Englishman, and whatever he might say, would be taken with less suspicion than if it came from an Irish Protestant. Whatever they said about Popery in their own country was always looked upon with suspicion, because they were supposed to be actuated by prejudice against it. When the statements of his friend were laid before the meeting he had no doubt they would be shocked and grieved as he was, that such an awful state of things should exist. His friend had a charitable object in view in addressing them,-but that object was entirely apart from the business which more immediately brought them together. He concluded by introducing Joseph Bell Clarke, Esq.

C. T. COOKE, Esq. came forward, and begged leave to say a few words before Mr. Clarke addressed the meeting. He observed that at one time they had in Cheltenham a flourishing auxiliary society; but from various causes it had fallen into decay, and they had held meetings but once in every two years. The last meeting they had was in 1847. He had to regret, in common with their chairman, the absence of Mr. Blakeney, who he feared would not now arrive in time for the meeting. He would add in conclusion, that he should be most happy to receive the names of any friends who might desire to become annual subscribers.

J. B. CLARKE, Esq. then came forward and said, after the very kind manner in which his Rev. friend had introduced his name, he believed he need make no formal apology for appearing before the meeting. In alluding to Ireland he had to remark on the outset that the field was ripe, the harvest was ready for the sickle, and they had only to send out a sufficient body of reapers to gather it in. He was satisfied from what he saw during his recent visit to the sister country that if one thousand Irish Scripture readers,

godly and persevering men, were sent amongst the poor deluded Roman Catholics, they would in five years Christianize the country and make the people contented and happy.

The Rev. Dr. CUMMING rose, and in commencing his observations, first regretted the absence of Mr. Blakeney, whose duty it would have been to lay before them an explanation of the objects and progress of the Society, and who, by some accidental or unexpected circumstance, was detained from addressing them. With reference to the statement and appeals to their liberality which had been made, he was one of those who believed that the more Christian people are asked to do, the more they are disposed and able to do; and those who would give to this object, and be energetically and cordially disposed to it, are just those who would no doubt put the largest amounts in the plate at the door. He felt that the more a Christian does the more does he feel prompted to do, until at last his heart becomes open to all appeals for furthering his blessed Master's work, and his pocket becomes a thoroughfare without toll or turnpike, ont of which money leaps in succession until all that is wanted is supplied.

The priests he (Dr. Cumming) had met with frequently in England were extremely plausible, extremely well-gifted, and full of professions of benevolence and beneficence, and all the cant and slang of liberality on the one side, and all the subtlety of Popery on the other. If the Pope were to commit such a blunder as to bring a batch of Maynooth priests into England he would do more to exterminate Popery than all the Reformation Societies put together. And here he (the speaker) might state a fact which came under his own notice, namely, that the Pope, or those who were his chief representatives, his ecclesiastical inspectors, have felt the pulse of every population among whom they send the banners of Popery. They ascertain the peculiar taste and temperament of the people, and send men suited to the place in which they are to labour. Now in Ireland there is a semi-barbarous population-excepting,

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