you-a document which, I confess, appears to me the most awful I ever heard of, and though I read it to you at our last meeting, I read it again for this reason-because I see, in a review which is published under the patronage of Mr. O'Connell--the Dublin Review-he promises in the last number, that the next number shall contain the oath and declaration of the archbishops and bishops of the Roman Catholic Church. Therefore you may take the Dublin Review, with this oath and declaration along with it, and weigh it in one scale with this quarto Bible in another. This declaration on oath, and these resolutions, were appended to "Dr. Doyle's letter to Lord Liverpool," in 1826:

"At a time when the spirit of calm inquiry is abroad, and men seem anxious to resign those prejudices through which they viewed the doctrines of others, the archbishops and bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland avail themselves with pleasure of this dispassionate tone of the public mind, to exhibit a simple and correct view of those tenets that are most frequently misrepresented. If it please the Almighty that the Catholics of Ireland should be doomed to continue in the humbled and degraded condition in which they are now placed, they will submit with resignation to the divine will. The prelates, however, conceive it a duty which they owe to themselves, as well as to their Protestant fellow-subjects, whose good opinion they value, to endeavour once more to remove the false imputations that have frequently been cast upon the faith and discipline of that church which is entrusted to their care, that all may be enabled to know with accuracy the genuine principles of those men who are proscribed by law from any participation in the honours, dignities, and emoluments of the

state."

Now look, I beseech you, at these general principles.

"The Catholics of Ireland not only do not believe, but they declare upon oath, that they detest as unchristian and impious, the belief 'that it is lawful to murder or destroy any person or persons whatsoever; for or under the pretence of their being heretics;' and also the principle that no faith is to be kept with heretics.' They further declare on oath their belief, that no act, in itself unjust, immoral, or wicked, can ever be justified or excused by, or under pretence or colour, that it was done for the good of the church, or in obedience to any ecclesiastical power whatsoever. That it is not an article of the Catholic faith, neither are they thereby required .o believe that the

VOL. IL

Pope is infallible, and that they do not hold themselves bound to obey any order in its own nature immoral, though the Pope or any ecclesiastical power should issue or direct such an order; but, on the contrary, that it would be sinful in them to pay any respect or obedience thereto.""

Again in the 12th article

"They further solemnly, in the presence of God, testify and declare, that they make this declaration, and every part thereof, in the plain and ordinary sense of the words of their oath, without any evasion, equivocation, or mental reservation whatsoever, and without any dispensation already granted by the Pope, or any authority of the See of Rome, or any person whatever, and without thinking that they are or can be acquitted before God or man, or absolved of this declaration, or any part thereof, although the Pope or any persons in authority whatsoever, shall dispense with or annul the same, or declare that it was null and void from the beginning."

13th article, again

"The Catholics of Ireland,' far from claiming any right or title to forfeited lands, resulting from any right, title, or interest, which their ancestors may have had therein, declare upon oath, that they will defend, to the utmost of their power, the settlement and arrangement of property in this country, as established by the laws now in being.' They also disclaim, disavow, and solemnly abjure any intention to subvert the present Church Establishment for the purpose of substituting a Catholic Establishment in its stead. And, further, they swear that they will not exercise any privilege, to which they are or may be entitled, to disturb or weaken the Protestant religion and Protestant government in Ireland.””

There is the oath of the Roman Catholic bishops-I believe I shall not go far astray, when I say there-(pointing to the Bible with the Rhemish notes)-there is the Bible upon which it was sworn. Now who could doubt a number of men professing to be the servants of God-however erroneous we may believe their principles to bewho came forward and could make such a declaration upon oath as this; who could have believed that, at that very moment, under their authority, were circulating throughout Ireland, principles as far from those which they professed on oath, as their own, as the east is from the west? Were not these things calculated to lull Protestants into a false security? Did they not succeed in doing so? Was not

Popery, like its parent and prototype, putting off its natural form, and whispering, in reptile shape, in the ear of sleeping England, like the toad in the ear of slumbering Eve, dreams of harmony and peace which were to be expected from abandoning the Word of her God, and giving that Word up to be trampled under foot by the tyrant Church of Rome? But as the reptile thus was whispering in its borrowed shape, it has pleased God-not by man's wisdom, or by man's resources--for I solemnly declare, I do not consider that there is any more credit due to me for the discovery of these documents than to any individual in this hall: they have been brought out, I believe, by the providence of God, and therefore it is I am able to stand in such an assembly as this, because I stand plainly and simply in the confidence of my God: because these things being brought out by the providence of God, give me hope-hope, not only for the cause of truth, but hope for my poor, deluded, ignorant fellow-countrymen!-therefore I say that while this reptile was whispering its dreams of delusion in this alien form at the nation's ear, God, by the heavenly tempered spear of truth, has touched the monster, and he starts again into his native shape in all the dark dimensions of the demon.

[It was in this part of Mr. M'Ghee's speech that he introduced the fictitious bull which had been mistaken by him for a genuine one. It is only necessary to remark, after all that has been said upon the subject, that not one resolution, or part of a resolution, was founded on it→→→ the whole business of the meeting stands perfect and complete without it.]

It now only remains for me to remark on some attacks that have been made upon statements which have been laid before the public by my reverend brethren and myself; I deeply regret they are not here to-day, or I should not have occupied your time so long. As far as I am personally concerned in any attacks which have been made upon me, I trust I care nothing for them. When engaged according to my conscience, and my duty to my country or my God, I hope I know enough of my Lord and Master to despise the hatred of a world in such a cause. And I trust I know-at least I am sure I ought to know--enough of myself to keep me humble in the dust amidst its loudest applause. It would be presumptuous and impertinent to obtrude any thing connected with an individual, especially one so very

* Report published by the Protestant Association.

iusignificant as I am, upon such an assembly as this. But I have been accused of going about as a "political incendiary," as a "politician," "sent forward by others as a politician." Now, if it may subserve the cause of truth-if it may lull the prejudices of any individual whose political prejudices are easily excited, and which prevent them often from attending even to the plainest evidence of truth, I may tell them truly, candidly, I have resided for ten years and a half within ten miles of the city of Dublin,--a period which, as you know, embraced the most stormy political contests in the history of Ireland, and I now solemnly declare that I never belonged to any political party—Orangemen, Brunswick Clubs, Conservative Societies, or any other society of the kind. I solemnly declare that never in my life was I present even at a political meeting, except one, and that one was by accident, in 1834, at the great Protestant meeting. I never heard one of those great orators whose speeches have filled the public journals on these subjects, except those which I heard that day; I never even heard the great Leviathan of Ireland deliver an oration in that country, nor can I that it was any mere political curiosity that induced me to request the honour of his attendance here to-day. So far from being a political opponent of my Roman Catholic countrymen, I never took the slightest part in that great question which agitated almost every individual in the empire. What little efforts I have made, and they have been but little--having been laid by from the ministry for eighteen years but what little efforts I have been enabled to make, have been made to the best of my judgment, not against, but for the benefit of my poor Roman Catholic countrymen. And when in the storms of political animosity, which took place in 1828, a pericd at which Brunswick Clubs and Catholic Associations had their swords almost half drawn from their scabbards, I was with some of my brethren--the least indeed among them--but I was with them, standing, not on a platform exciting political enmity--not addressing Protestants, but addressing, at the Rotunda in Dublin, assemblies of my poor Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen, testifying, I trust, faithfully, but I hope with Christian love, against their errors, and they listening, I will say indeed of them, patiently and kindly to what we said.

say

"Dens's Theology" has been called a discovery to be attributed to my exertions, and I have been less pained by public censure than by totally undeserved praise. It was no more to be attributed to exertions of mine than to the exertions of any individual in this room. On the contrary, as the public have taken a deep interest in it, I may mention

I was rather to be considered as culpably careless on the subject. "Dens's Theology" was put in my hands by a Protestant bookseller, in November, 1834; it was the only copy he had seen; I believe he got it at an auction, and it lay actually unopened on my table from November 1834, till the month of April, 1835. During that interval I was employed in every leisure hour I could spare, not in endeavouring to injure, but in writing and labouring, to the best of my judgment, for the true interests of my Roman Catholic countrymen. When I opened and read the principles maintained in "Dens's Theology," they were laid before a number of my brethren, and the result was, that it was thought expedient, for the sake of truth, to lay them before the public. We have done so. We have been objected to because we have done so. Our principles have been called in question. But we stated the truth, and, with the blessing of God, the truth we will maintain. But I say that if I acted in this as a politician, I should not have feared to acknowledge it. If I felt it my duty to act as a politician before God, do you think that I should fear to acknowledge it before an assembly of my fellow-men? I acted upon principle. My principle was this-and I submit it earnestly, affectionately, anxiously, devotedly, to the attention of every Protestant, especially every Protestant minister, if my dear brethren who surround me will permit me, I humbly beseech them to allow me to suggest to them my feeling upon this subject. It is this:-if these men are wrongif these principles are immoral, anti-social, wicked, atrocious, detestable before man, and accursed before God, what is the duty of Christians? I know of no principle of sound, moral, or physical philosophy which deals with the effect, and leaves the cause which produced it to operate without notice. Therefore, I say, I care not by what party, Whigs or Tories, or any other party, I say the efforts that have been made, or that are made, by any statesman, by laws, by regulations, by severe coercions, or by unprincipled concessions for the regeneration of Ireland, are like the contemptible practices of an ignorant empiric, who would apply a remedy to some remote sympathetic local pain, while he left the disease which produced it to prey, without an effort to cure it, upon the vitals of the sufferer. If our Roman Catholic countrymen are wrong-and wrong they are to the core-we should lay the axe to the root of the matter, i. e. not by persecution, but by devoted Christian persevering fidelity, to testify to them of the blessed Word of God, and to bear our testimony against their error-to instruct them in the Gospel of Jesus Christ