PROTESTANT ALLIANCE, THE. The Protestant Alliance was instituted in 1845. With it are associated a number of other similar Societies, including the Scot tish Protestant Alliance. The object of the alliance is to maintain and defend, against all that it considers encroachments of Popery, the Scriptural doctrines of the Reformation and the principles of civil and religious liberty, as the best security under God for the temporal and spiritual welfare of the British Empire. For this purpose it makes in the main two great efforts. (1) " To unite the Protestants of the Empire in a firm and per severing demand, both in Parliament and out of it, that the national support and encouragement given to Popery should be discontinued. In this demand would be included all endowments of Popery in every form and of every kind, drawn from the public revenues, the conces sion of rank and precedence to Romish Ecclesiastics, and the allowance of conventual establishments not sub ject to the inspection and. control of the Law." (2) " To
extend, as far as may be practicable, the sympathy and support of British Christians to those in foreign countries who may be suffering oppression for the cause of the Gospel; and to seek to call forth the influence of the British Government to obtain for Protestants, when residing in Roman Catholic countries, religious liberty equal to that which is granted to Roman Catholics in Great Britain and its dependencies, especially the liberty of public worship, and of burying their dead according to their own rites; and above all, freedom in the use and circulation of the Word of God." The Alliance pro fesses to be non-political.