PROTESTANTS IN PROTEST.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 832, 30 July 1910, Page 5

PROTESTANTS IN PROTEST.

THE ROYAL OATH. NO PROVISION AGAINST MENTAL RESERVATION. PROCESSION IN LONDON. By Telegraph—Press Association-Copyright. London, July 28. The Protestant Truth Society has protested against the new Accession Declaration on tho ground that it does not provide against a mental reservation with regard to a Papal dispensation, and that it is only on a parallel with tho oaths taken by Charles II and James 11, both of which were ineffective. Members'of the society held a procession in Downing Street, and cried "No Popery!" Tho police stopped the procession. BILL THROUGH COMMITTEE. (Ree. July 30, 0.5 a.m.) London, July 29. The Accession Declaration Bill ■ has been taken 'through its .committee stage in the House of, Commons.

AN INTERESTING PAGE OF . HISTORY.

Although the House of Commons has carried the second reading of the now Accession Declaration Bill,' -there is evidently a considerable body ot feeling in Scotland and Cornwall- against any modification of the Declaration, which has been required of the Sovereign .oyer since the passing of the Bill of Rights in 1089, and was, until tho passing of the Roman Catholic Emancipation Act ot 1829, also required of all office-bearers under tho Crown, and all members ot Parliament. The Declaration had been almost- forgotten, until, on the accession of King Edward, it was brought into the light of publicity asain, after a lapse of over sixty year.-,. In a paper on tho subject, Lord Wandaff recently said: "The history of this Declaration increases the bitterness of feeling which it arouses. It was first introduced in a statute of Charles 11 HU Car. 11, St. 2) passed at the time when the whole nation was in a frenzy of irrational passion and discreditable panic, in which the English qualities of good senso arid moderation seemed to have given place to blind credulity and bloodthirsty violence.". That this is true may he-at once conceded (writes "Tho Times')! tho test for excluding Romanists from Parliament, mid from offices of public, trust was the direct result of the doings ot Titus Oates and of the Popish plot. James 11, -with all the Stuart love of personal power, possessed a double measure of the zeal of a Roman Catholic convert. His Coronation Oath was that of the English Kings-before him, .except that, after' the .mention.' of tho laws and customs of "the glorious King St; Edward," a clause was added; "according to the law of God, and the truo profession of the Gosncl established in this Kingdom." After their experience of the fashion in which James II kept his oath, the framers of the Bill of Rights thought it necessary to set up a form so explicit thut nu casuistry would be possible, and they selected the Declaration oflfi'S as completely suitnblo far their purpose.