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4 g|mTi|| REV. A. J. RYAN, Editor- AUGUSTA, GA„ APRIL 18, 1868. GEN. PATRICK R. CLEBURNE, In this issue of our paper, we reproduco from a work entitled the “Irish in America,” by John Francis Maguire, M. P., a bio graphical sketch of Major-General Patrick 11. Cleburne, that chivalrous son of Ire land who died in fighting for his adopted South in front of the enemy’s breast works at Nashville. The name and the fame of Cleburne is enshrined in the hearts of our ueoplc, and will be honored and revered so long as the recollections of our struggle for liberty and constitu tional government holds a place in the affections of our posterity. This tribute to the valor and worth of Patrick Cleburne is written by that peer less soldier and chieftain, Lieut. General Hard ee. We want to preserve the glorious re cord of our dead, and shall at all times take a pride in defending their manes and their cause from insult and contume ly. Whenever the proper materials for a biography of any of our fallen brave is placed in our possession, it will always find a place in the columns of the Banner. OUR DEAD, A people who forget the memory of their dead deserve to be forgotten themselves. Yes, they deserve to be branded with the brand of infamy while living, and go down to their narrow graves “ unwept, unhonored, and un sung/’ There is not in man’s nature a nobler sentiment than that which cherishes and reveres the memories of the dead, who die in a just and righteous cause. Though the iron hand of power and op pression may trample on the rights of the living, and thereby restrain public demonstrations in commemoration of those who laid down their lives for us, the sen timents of universal love and refined affection cannot be torn from the privacy of the family circle and the recesses of the heart. There, at least, these memories can be held sacred and cherished till the dawn of anew era, in which it shall not be deemed treasonable to pay homage to the manes of the gallant dead, who went down to death because they were not afraid to defend their rights and die in defence of their native land. That day will surely dawn in which it will be deemed an honor and a duty by the American people to participate in ceremo nies commemorative of the “Lost Cause,” and the martyrs who marched so grandly and sublimely through the valley of death in its defence. It is only the good and true who hold fast to the faith that is born of virtue and valor when defeat and dis aster is upon them. The mean and igno ble are cowards, and cowards are not far removed from traitors, having no regard for God or country, but always ready to fall down, and fawn, and cringe, and wor ship at the footstool of power. And so it is, alas ! that our own bright sunny land is now afflicted and sorely oppressed by those who were once the loudest lip tongued braggarts in her defence, who, forgetful of her past and their own man hood, have ignominiously sold their birth right for a mess of pottage —insulting the memory of the dead, and ignoring the presence of the living e‘ \\ longs are sometimes neglected even in our ottle world, and when righted those instrumental in inflicting them do not always escape that reward which is theirs by the laws of retributive jus tice. Other nations and ether people in other lands than ours have passed under the rod. Broken-hearted, heavy bur thened, foot-sore, and weary, they travel ed as we are travelling now, exiles as it were, in their own land; but in their sufferings and sorrows they clung to their past. Proud of the history which they had made, and reverencing the memories associated with it, and the men who died for it, they preserved their honor and their manhood. By the hallowed associations of the past and the hopes of a future, which will surely bring with it a glorious reward, let us never forget to honor the men who wearing the Grey, went down to death for us and posterity. The twenty-sixth of April is near at hand. This is the day set apart for dec orating the graves of our departed heroes in Georgia and other States of the South. Bear it in mind. On that day, let onr noble women repair to the resting places of our dead, and strew the sweetest floral offerings of nature on their lonely graves, and thus will we keep fresh in our memorios the worth and heroism of our fallen braves, and exhibit some apprecia tion for the cause that is sleeping with them. ■ ONE OF THE WRONGS OF IRELAND RIGHTED. The Irish Church Establishment, under which unhappy Ireland so long and so unjustly suffered, has received its death blow at the hands of the English Parlia ment. On the 4th day of April, 1868, ; Gladstone succeeded in bringing his reso lutions for dis-establishment to a vote, notwithstanding P’lsraeli’s efforts to post pone the question; and this great measure of justice was carried by a majority of 56 votes, on a full vote of 600 members. Thus has this structure of iniquity been leveled at a blow, and justice, though tardy, meted out to Ireland. The London Times, of the 6th instant, in an article on this subject, says : “Thc Commons have lesolvcd that this cancer of the Empire shall be removed. The rejection of Lord Stanley’s amend ment to postpone consideration until the next Parliament, and the adoption of Mr. Gladstone’s resolution to go into commit tee, are merely the first steps of the ope ration. “The national will is soon to be ex pressed, and it will be in no uncertain sound. It will insist that the work, so happily begun, shall be thoroughly per formed. This morning's vote is the dawn of a re-united Empire. Now Ireland may take confidence from this vote, that she is sustained by the vast balance of opinion of the United Kingdom. The wrongs of ages are to be ended, and right done amid the acclamation of the nation. This must guarantee peace.” The Morning Pod, of the same date, uses this language in an article on the same subject: “This vote is the death warrant of the Irish Church, No fairer trophy has been won by the Liberal party since the Emancipation of 1829.” This “disestablishment,” as Mr. Glad stone expressively styles it, is indeed a glorious step for Ireland, and a proud monument to English liberality and justice. The former will no longer have to support a State Church, and the money which has thus, heretofore, been wrung from the hard earnings of her people, can now be applied to the support of the religion of her fathers and of her choice. The latter will have the approval of liberal and just people everywhere. Mr. Gladstone, in the course of his speech on the subject, said : “With respect to the Church, I will say that, in my opinion, it is absolutely ne cessary in the first instance, that we should establish religious equality in Ire land, (Hear.) lam not going to discuss the respective merits of ‘leveling up’ or ‘leveling down/ but‘equality,’ understood in the sense of grants from the Exche quer, in order to bring the general popu lation of Ireland up to the level of the Establishment, or understood in the sense of plans for dividing and re-distributing the income and revenues of the Establish ment in salaries and stipends to the clergy of several communities —these are measures which whether they would have been beneficial or not at other times, have now, in my opinion, passed beyond ail | bounds of possibility. (Cheers.) My j opinion, then, is that religious equality is j a phrase which requires further develop- j ment, and I will develope it further by' saying that, in religious equality, I, for my part, include, in its fullest extent, the word—the very grave word, I do not deny, and I think we cannot be too care ful to estimate its gravity before we take a conclusive step —the very grave word, disestablishment. (Cheers.) In my judgment, if we are to do any good at all by meddling with the Church in Ireland, it must be by putting a period to the ex istence of a State Church.” (Cheers.) GROWING LIBERALITY. We give, in another place, an extract from the Waynesboro’ (Ga.) Times , and below an article from the Talladega (Ala.) Mountain Home, in reference to the Catholic Church. These articles, coming as they do from a dissenting press, are peculiarly gratifying to ns, because they show that the people of this country, and particularly of the South, are beginning to learn that -me gross charges against onr Church are false and malignant; be cause they are beginning to examine for themselves, and to see that the grand old Church of the Saviour, of the Apostles, of the Popes, is not that monster which its enemies would paint it, but the pre server of nil the truths and records of Christianity, the teacher of all good, and the conservator of nations; and because these arc cumulative evidence of the Christian charity of our Southern people, and the growing spirit of liberality and enlightenment which characterises the present age : From the Mountain Home, April (sth. Toleration, —lt is one of the great and beneficial results of intellectual ad vancement, that as society becomes re fined and cultivated, just in the same proportion does the hateful influence of intolerance loose its baleful influence on the minds of men. Bigotry, intolerance and superstition are triplets of ignorance and barbarity, and where we sec their presence displayed Isl any community, we may safely conclude that its victims are not so mad as they are ignorant, and while we may properly contemn the spirit, we should more properly deplore the cause that warms it into life, and fos ters it into vigor. The intelligent mind is free from its influences, but still the power intolerance exercises over the ma terial interests of a community is im mense; and it matters not how much we may contemn and despise it, yet its power will befeii, and its insidious and poison ous influence disseminated, unless it is met and destroyed by removing the dark ness, in which it has its being, from the minds of its victims. As intolerance is an unmistakable mark of ignorance, its antithesis charity, is a sure evidence of intelligence, and it is a gratifying evidence of the great social advancement of the world to see with what deferential respect one of our reli gious denominations are disposed to re gard another. Not only are the different branches of the Protestant church begin ning to exercise charity toward each other, but occasionally we see some great mind breaking entirely the tramels of denomi national prejudices, and speaking a word of Christian charity and sympathy in fa vor of our Homan Catholic brethren. We do not propose to enter the field of theological controversy, and least of all as the advocate of the Roman faith, but we do insist that the Koman Church is and has been wickedly persecuted, by men who through their ignorance of its arti cles could not appreciate the great prin ciples ofChristian unity, devotion and du ty they contained. A church laying the best claims to an tiquity, tracing an unbroken connection with the church organised by the imme diate disciples of our blessed Saviour himself, embracing as it docs two-thirds of the christianized souls in the world, surely such a church is entitled, at least, to the Christian charity of all professing a belief in the same God, and the same Saviour We were led to the above reflections from the reading of an article in the At lantic Monthly for April, entitled “ Our Catholic Brethren where the writer goes on very gravely to describe the cere monies of a morning mass, and, wc could not help but smile at the idea that the daily service of a church with a congre gation of four or five thousand, should be so little known as to require a detailed description of its every part. But amusing as the idea may be, we have no doubt but that the description will be read with as much curious interest, as if it were the details of some Bhudietic celebration. The Atlantic Monthly, as most of our readers know, is published in Boston, the Puritanical cradle of America, and the appearance of such an article, breathing such a spirit of tolerance and so justly according to our Catholic brethren the merits that arc honestly their due, cannot fail to do good, and for this reason wo were glad to see it. It is to be regarded as another evidence of the march of civi lization, and encouraget us to hope that after all there may come some good out of “Nazareth !” mm- A VOICE FROM THE NORTH. Wc beg pardon of our readers for pre senting them with the following letter. It is filled with such abominable senti ments ; it breathes such fierce hatred against the South ; it puts forth such re markable doctrines—and all in the name of religion—that we thought it useful, as a sign of the times, as a straw, showing the drift of the current, to give it to our readers. It will show how some men hate us, and regard that hatred as a reli* gious duty ; it will show how far some would proceed against us ; it will illustrate how free and unshackled is the Press of the North. We believe that this letter embodies the sentiments of a great many of the North. One bold man expresses, through it, what thousands feel. We ask of all our readers to peruse it from the beginning to the end. We have no com ment to make. Here is the remarkable letter : SPIRIT OF THE RADICAL RELIGIOUS PRESS AND PULPIT A MOST REMARKABLE LETTER. Chicago, 111., Novembei 12, 1867. To the Editor of the Knoxville Free Press: —“l have noticed lately several (editorial) allusions in your paper to what appears to be a matter of feeling among the people of East Tennessee in regard to Methodist Church property, and in yours of the sth instant, under the head of ‘Loyal Church,’ an article signed ‘Lover of Peace,’ on the same subject. From all I have seen and heard on this subject in the last three years, 1 conclude that all the supposed trouble in church property among East Tennesseeans has grown out of the action of Bishop Simp son in church matters in that State ; and supposing I am right in this, I beg leave t.o say a few woods in defense of Bishop Simpson, on the basis of general princi ple. It is evident, to my mind, that the gulf which separates the Southern Metho dist from the Northern Methodist is much deeper and wider than many suppose. So great, indeed, that it were folly to at tempt to bridge it, or for the two classes ever to meet. I, of course, belong to the Northern Methodist class, and feel and speak in their bohalf, and, in doing so, I shall exercise that frankness aud candor of expression on the Methodist affairs that Wendell Phillips is wont to do on political affairs. “In the first place, the Methodists, both North and South, need ‘watering’ very much to bring them up to the true stand ard of courage and honesty necessary to assert pdainly their true characters Religion and politics are, in fact, one and the same thing, and must be so consider ed (in all popular governments especially), in fact, religion and politics have always been considered one and the same in all nations. Ours was the first and only experiment, we know of, to trejit the two as distinct elements in civil government, and we arc fully justified in asserting that the experiment has been a failure ; or, at least, the experiment has had the same conflict that has always before resulted from opposing ideas. All government is based on the religious character of those who form and carry it on ; and when there becomes a conflict of views in its administration, it arises, of from religious differences. It is the ‘religious mind’ which makes and executes the laws, and shapes, in every feature, the legislation of a government. This is a fact which needs no argument to prove it: because the opposite of the as sertion cannot be found to exist in any nation on earth. The United States forms no -exception, though in our ‘system’ we attempted it for eighty years. Still the religious power ot the human mind would at last prevail over all the other elements of the government. Now, the stronger prevailed and took possession of all the property and appliances appertaining to the organization of the weaker. The word Methodist, it is true, is applied to the two classes of people North and South, yet one is like that of the Hindoo. Bishop Simpson represented the Northern masses in taking possession of property fairly won by conquest, in support and defense of Northern religion, as opposed to Southern religion, in the United States, and in which Northern religion nearly all other small denominations in the North agree and sympathiae, and have an in terest, therefore, in the property acquired. I he Methodists ot the North constitute the great directing power of religion in America ; all the other denominations called Protestant, though differing in form, in ritual, and other minor points, yet follow, in substance, thq religious course marked out by the great ruling power, the Northern Methodists. You msy as well say that an army has no right to the arms and supplies which it wins on the hard-fought field of battle as to say that tbe Northern Methodist Church has no right to every church, school-house, and every acre of land formerly held by the Southern Methodists. Not only so, but it is just as wrong and pernicious for Northern Methodists to permit Southern Methodists to meet and worship at all, as it would be to permit Lee or Johnson to call together and drill their disbanded men under arms. “Methodism in the South was conquer ed and subjugated, and henceforth has no claims on anything used or belonging to its former self. Even their Bibles, books and printing establishments became the property of the victors, aud ought to be used. Did Spain allow Mexico to continue its religious exercises after Cortez con quered it ? Certainly not. Neither did any nation or people ever concede such a privilege to the one they had to subjugate. No more, then, ought the North concede such to the South. But you may say that the Southern Methodists and the Northern Methodists are one and the same in religion. This (as I have before said) is not the case, and this will appear very clear from the very correct definition of the word. “Webster has, perhaps, done more harm in his elaborate comments on the meaning of the word religion than any other author or writer. But Webster even borrowed more than he originated or even learned. “Religion, then, is simply one’s convic tion of duty to him or herself, his fellows and his Creator. It lias nothing to do with rewards and punishments in some other world, but belongs entirely to one’s sojourn on this earth. It must be evident, therefore, that the man who can believe that his owning and selling, and buying*, working, and not educating, a human be ing*, is quite different from the belief of another man who believes in his heart that his duty is not to own, buy, or sell, nor to work without educating his fel lows. Also, it is obvious that the system ©f theology which is reconcilable with the first, cannot form any part of the re ligion of the second. Now, the Book, called the Bible, is often quoted in sup port of either side of the question ; and, it is true it does give evidence on both sides, just as one’s mind and one’s heart incline ; but one man forgets that ‘progressive mind’ is, in fact, the life of any religion, while the dead, inert 'letter killelh !’ The Bible of the Southern people we of the North want nothing to do with. We have our own views and sentiments, which with us are the Creator’s views and de sires as to us, and, being the stronger, we announce our claim, by God’s laws, to all those men and things which come in our way. We, therefore, claim to own, in fee simple, every person and tiling in all the conquered South in any wise appertaining to the Southern people, whether white or black. /The blacks belong to us ju«t as well as the whites ; and if it were*our re ligion to buy, sell, and work them as slaves, then it would be done, unless a stronger religion should interfere to pre vent us. “We, therefore, hold that the Southern people (not only Methodists, but all) have no religion, and ought not to be allowed to assemble either in former churches, or elsewhere, and we have no doubt the time is not far distant when such prohibition will be fully carried out, and that, too, by our religion growing up among you. “The period is very brief when any man,’much less an editor, can be permit ted to assert that Northern Methodists ‘steal property, Ac.,’ that ‘belongs to Methodists.’ The fact is, all the Southern people have fallen so far be hind the progress of the age in every thing, not only in religion, that they are really ignorant of the plainest truths, as well in the religion of the present age,, as in the discoveries in science, and their daily application to the various arts of life Religion being the essential element of ail political progress, it must of necessi ty partake of all the modifications which the progressive and educated minds dis cover in accordance with the clear est lights of the present age. ‘Orthodox’ and Heterodox’ are no longer arrayed against each other. Orthodox does not, at the present day, among the truly edu cated, presume to denounce as heretical or heterodox, those who differ with the former on religion or politics. Three persons in one God is no more nor less than a figure of illustration ; so, a ‘never-ending hell,’ taught for hundreds of years by all ITc testants, is not for a moment believed by the educated of the present day. It is true many ignorant people of the Methc-