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"The sentiments which were professed in the year 1830, with respect to those clauses in the relief bill which peculiarly affected ecclesiastics, have been placed on record. They are embodied in the pastoral address of that year, dated February 9, to which the signatures of twenty-seven bishops are appended :

"To our venerable brethren the clergy, of whatsoever degree, we propose, with reference to what here follows, our own example; they will copy it into their lives, and adhere to it as a rule of conduct. We united our efforts with those of the laity in seeking to attain their just rights, and to attain them without a compromise of the freedom of our church. Success attended our united efforts, because reason, and justice, and religion, and the voice of mankind, were upon our side. We rejoice at the result, regardless of those provisions in the great measure of relief which injuriously affect ourselves, and not only us, but those religious orders which the church of God, even from the apostolic times, has nurtured and cherished in her bosom. These provisions, however, which were, as we hope and believe, a sacrifice required not by reason or policy, but by prejudices holding captive the minds of even honest men, did not prevent us from rejoicing at the good which was effected for our country; but we rejoiced at that result, not more on public grounds than we did because we found ourselves discharged from a duty which necessity alone had allied to our ministry—a duty imposed on us by a state of times which has passed, but a duty which we have gladly relinquished, in the fervent hope, that by us or by our successors it may not be resumed. These are the sentiments which the spirit of our calling inspires; they are the sentiments which never ceased to animate us, and which our clergy, always obedient to our voice, will cherish along with us, that as the apostle commands, "all may say the same thing, and there may be no divisions amongst us."'

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"This is a remarkable passage. It expresses, certainly, an opinion that the prohibition against taking episcopal titles, as well as that provision which was made for the registration of the regular orders, was uncalled for; but, at the same time, promises a pious and cheerful obedience. These enactments accompanied a great measure, at which the subscribers to the Pastoral declare that they rejoice; and so little do they feel their joy abated by the attendant circumstances, that they declare themselves regardless' of such provisions. I pause not to quote the terms of all but extravagant encomium which they adopt, in speaking of that government by which, what they call the healing measure' was carried. It is sufficient to notice, that they consider the measure for their relief so ample, and attendant conditions so little onerous, that their rejoicing is undisturbed, their determination to estrange themselves henceforth from political contention settled and sincere, and their recommendation earnest, that the clergy of their communion may profit by their example. One example of obedience, pertinent to the occasion, the Pastoral itself provided. It is subscribed by twenty-seven signatures, in every one of which the prohibition of law is respected. "The name of John M Hale, D.D.' is found among those affixed to the Pastoral. This most rev. divine, then, it is plain, thought the prohibition to take the title of an Irish see a very light thing in the year 1830. He noticed the enactment only for the purpose of showing how cheerfully he obeyed it. The question as to the duty of ecclesiastics was discussed in 1833. In 1834, John M'Hale, D.D., was an altered man. Duty to his church demanded that obedience to a secular law should be renounced. John M'Hale spurns the prohibition. He is now John Tuam,' and lest there should be any doubt that his adoption of the forbidden title was an inadvertency, he proclaims his remembrance of the law he disobeys, and boasts his violation of it witness,' he addresses the Duke of Wellington, your impotent laws against Catholic bishops assuming their ancient and hereditary titles. THINK YOU THEY HAVE ANY FORCE OF BINDING MEN'S CONSCIENCES?'

"Do not pronounce this incident of trivial import, because there were not more than perhaps two bishops who violated the law respecting titles, and only one who vaunted of the violation. A single insult was sufficient to instruct the people of Ireland, a second disobedience, according to the doctrine of the schools, converted the act into a precedent; and frequent repetitions of the affront could serve little purpose but to awake the sluggard anxieties of England. Suppose it the doctrine of the Church of Rome that her ministers in Ireland owed no obedience to the laws of the country that it was a mere question of prudence how long the fear of causing scan

dal or provoking chastisement should subdue them into an attitude of heartless submission-it is easy to understand, if the conference decided on awaking the dormant independence of the clergy, that one or two significant notices might be sufficient to affirm the revived principle, and telegraph the announcement that secular authority was denied, while at the same time, in the general quiescence of the ecclesiastical body, a topic would be provided which treacherous and unthinking declaimers might advance, as proof that the incident at which cautious men had taken alarm, was an offence attributable to temper, rather than to arrangement and design.

"I have omitted many proofs that the Romish clergy in Ireland regard themselves as above the law. The fact that they do requires no proof. My object was, simply, to trace the coincidence between the public demonstrations of their scorn of law, and their selection of a question for conference to which such contempt for authority would seem the fitting practical answer. It is your part to judge whether a system, which releases its ministers from obligations which all citizens and subjects incur, and requires of its people blind and unqualified submission to their instructions, ought to be looked at without suspicion and alarm.

"No rational man could think, without painful apprehensions, of such a system. Even though the book selected for the guidance of the Roman Catholic priests were sealed to him-although he knew nothing more than their claim of exemption from law, the questions proposed for conference, and the events which synchronized with the perilous discussion of them-it is impossible for him, if capable of reflection, to be unacquainted with alarm. A brief recapitulation of some coincidences noticed in these letters will show that the alarm would not be unfounded.

"1. In the second, or, perhaps, we should call it, the summer conference of 1830, a question respecting the right of the beneficed clergy was proposed. In the autumn of the same year their claims were systematically resisted. The circumstances of the resistance were very suspicious, but as yet without blood.'

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"2. In the concluding, the winter conference, of 1830, the priests, who are above law, decided on the instructions to be given to men whose profession is military, to judges and jurors. It became necessary, as we learn from the parliamentary committee of the year 1832, in consequence of the harangues delivered by these 'absolute' instructors, that a commissioned officer should accompany each party of Roman Catholic soldiers to their chapels. As if the people had been encouraged to hope forbearance from the military, or favour from jurors, they entered upon a course of assassination and bloodshed without parallel in our history. In Clare and in Kilkenny jurors could not be procured to do justice.

In his second letter the author thus notices a contradiction hazarded by a Roman Catholic bishop. Before inquiring into the doctrines, where they find answers, and the incidents by which the utterance of them has been signalized, it may be no impertinent digression to notice a recent epistle addressed by an Irish Right Rev. Divine to the Lord Bishop of Gloucester, and rendered memorable by a question which, in subtlety or indiscretion, he was daring enough to propose.

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Your lordship," writes Bishop Kinsela, "states that several of the Protestant clergy have been murdered, and that others have been brutally assaulted. Permit

me, with due respect, to say that your lordship has stated what is not true. I have heard of the murder of but one Protestant clergyman, that occurred some years ago, and had no connexion with the state of religious or political feeling. As to the brutal assaults, I have not heard of them; but as regards both murders and assaults, I am ready to be corrected by your lordship's superior knowledge of Ireland; and do therefore very respectfully, but most strongly, call upon your lordship to give the names and residences of the clergymen who, as your lordship states, have been murdered and assaulted."

This is, in whatever light it be considered, a very daring solicitation. On fair conditions, I will undertake to indulge the right rev. querist with an answer. Let him and the other heads of his church, through their influence at the castle, and the conference, and the confessional, induce, I will not say tranquillity in Ireland, but such mitigation of crime as may influence life-assurance offices to rescind their late appalling resolution; I will undertake, as the reward, to enumerate cases of murder 2 B

VOL. II.

"3. In the second conference of 1852, the punishments decreed against heretics were the subject of discussion. That year was memorable for

"1st. The discovery of the new constitution of the Whitefeet, and their oath to keep down heresy.

"2nd. Frequent and sanguinary assaults upon Protestants.

"3rd The signals of the lighted turf' conveyed at midnight with alarming rapidity to the houses of Roman Catholics throughout all Ireland.

"4th. Extensive emigration of Protestants, caused by incessant persecution and alarms.

"5th. Protestants disguising their faith to obtain an uncertain protection from the priests.

"6th. Romish priests, in their sermons, predicting the speedy destruction of the Protestant religion.

and assault, and threatening notices, and compulsory emigration, by which not fewer certainly than seventy ministers of the Church of England, within the last few years, have been sufferers. But when the same papers which contain the earnest demand of a Romish bishop, that the names and residences of outraged Protestant clergymen be given to him, convey also ambiguous notifications that these virtuous and afflicted men have been placed beyond the protection of the law, it cannot be accounted overcautious to abstain from refreshing in the mind of Dr. Kinsela's penitents the thought of their unfinished purposes, and pointing out to them the undefended abodes of victims whom they had marked for destruction, and on whom their vengeance has not as yet been satiated. To abstain is certainly, at least in one not minutely conversant with the localities which may cause danger or security, the safer error.

But there are some cases in which it is not forbidden to reply to Dr. Kinsela's inquiries-cases to which so much notoriety was attached, that their remaining unknown to any individual in Ireland whose opinion could be of the slightest value, seems almost beyond belief. The murders of the Rev. Mr. Ferguson, in the county of Cork, of the Rev. G. Houston, in Kildare, were memorable, not alone from the circumstances of horror in which they were perpetrated, but also from their having been detailed, in the British House of Commons, in the eloquent language of Lord Stanley, and the Right Hon. the Recorder for Dublin. The more recent murder of the Rev. Mr. Dawson, in Limerick, was not, I believe, less frightful in its character. It occasioned a meeting in Ireland, at which incidents of no common interest occurred -it called forth also, I believe, strong observations in parliament. Is it possible that Dr. Kinsela never heard of any one of these foul murders, or that the general interest they created failed to impress the stories of them on his memory? There were other cases of which his forgetfulness is not less amazing.

Dr. Kinsela resides in the city of Kilkenny, at a distance of little more than twenty miles from Clonmel, a county and assize town, on the same circuit with Kilkenny, the judges leaving the one place, to hold, immediately after, their courts in the other. A trial was held at the Clonmel assizes for the murder of the Rev. Irwine Whitty, memorable, not alone because of the saintly character of the martyr, who had been stoned to death, but also for the obstinacy with which a crown-witness maintained his resolution not to give evidence, and for the question by which he silenced the remonstrances of the court, and the bar, and the jury-box. It was, "Must I be shot, my lord?" Imprisonment had no terror to conquer the apprehension which such a question implied; and the culprits were acquitted. Is it possible that Dr. Kinsela never heard of this remarkable case, and of the illuminations with which the liberation of the accused parties were celebrated?

At the Clonmel assizes a trial for the murder of the Rev. Mr. Going also took place. It disclosed matters of no ordinary moment. Dr. Kinsela must have heard of it-most strange that it should have passed out of his memory. The Rev. William Lee succeeded Mr. Going as parish minister of Mealiffe. Has Dr. Kinsela no remembrance of the trial at the assizes of Clonmel for the brutal and treacherous assaults by which that pious and eloquent divine, after being cruelly wounded, was driven from his home, and ultimately, I would say, deprived of life?

For cogent reasons I abstain, for the present, from noticing trials at the assizes of

"Such were the signs among and before the people, when discussions had arisen in the secret conferences as to the punishments decreed against heretics.

"4. In 1833, the question, whether clergy are subject to secular laws, was discussed.

"In the year following Dr. M'Hale vaunted his violation of a statute.

“5. In 1835, questions respecting title to property were proposed. In that year resistance to the payment of rents was organized, Mr. O'Connell descanted on the peculiar character of title in Ireland, and priests from the altar, and in public meetings, harangued vehemently to a similar effect.

"It is not rash to affirm, that coincidences so numerous and so exact as these, would cause a reflecting man to feel alarm, even though he were able to discern no connecting link between the perilous question and the demonstration of purpose which waited on it. But when a link has been discovered-when it is taken into account,

Kilkenny, but here are five, I would say six, cases of murder-six Protestant clergymen murdered within a space of time which goes no further back than the year 1829. Were they not memorable enough to be kept in mind? Are they not sufficiently numerous to convince the right rev. divine that he ought to offer some explanation of his question? I cannot speak but of the dead, while the ministers of my Church in Ireland are outlaws; but let a time arrive when the Christian endurance of these persecuted and forsaken men shall have won upon their tormentors' compassion, or when, notwithstanding their faithfulness, the British government will not withhold from them some share of its protection, and I undertake to say that outrages can be enumerated and proved, such as shall cause men's special wonder. I have not been careful to collect instances of suffering endured by my brethren, and of outrages inflicted on them, and even at this moment I could enumerate particulars of the following cases in which Protestant clergymen were sufferers:

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These cases of outrage occurred almost all since, none before, the year 1829. They are not to be regarded as by any means a full enumeration, being, indeed, little more than have, because of something peculiar in the incident, remained imprinted on a memory which was busy about other things. It is sufficient, perhaps to add, as accounting for my unassisted remembrance of most of these cases, that of the clergy who have suffered from violence within the time I have mentioned, thirty-nine were among my personal friends or acquaintances.

But, whatever may have been the sufferings experienced by Protestant ministers, Bishop Kinsela denies that "they had been denounced from the altars." "There are three thousand priests," he writes, "in Ireland, and it is barely possible that some one or other may have been so wicked as to do what your lordship states. I am certain that not one of my clergy did so. I am as certain as I can be in such a matter, that no Catholic clergyman in any diocese has done so. I never heard it was done." With equally honest indignation, Dr. Murray proclaims the falsehood of any charge against his clergy, or his order. Hence, you can apprehend what "blamelessness" means when a Romish bishop ascribes it to a Romish priest.

No Roman Catholic will venture to deny that the hierarchy and the priesthood of his church have exerted themselves to deprive the Protestant clergy of Ireland of the provision assigned to them by law, and which was, to very many of them, their sole subsistence. Nor can they deny that the constraining influences of religious authority

that precisely at the time when Romish bishops thought England most insecurewhen movements were progressing abroad, which increased the danger of domestic convulsion—when, by the contagion of example, Belgian revolt had wrought strongly on the passions of Irish agitators, the intolerant doctrine of a Belgian professor was declared the guide of the conferences of Irish priests-it cannot be denied that the coincidence is inauspicious; and, whatever may be the chronology of the secular and the spiritual demonstration-whether Dens called forth "repeal," or "repeal" suggested that the days were at hand when Dens would be wanted-it is impossible not to feel that the politics of Belgium, and its execrable theology, seen unexpectedly and in conjunction, impart, each to the other, a more menacing character, and cast a malign and threatening light over circumstances which, even when free from their influence, had been sufficiently portentous."

But we must not forget that our complaint against this vitiated and vitiating theology of Rome is of a more solemn character than could be derived from a consideration of its merely political consequences. We complain not alone of its tendency to occasion disturbances in states, but that it is calculated to destroy souls. Where have we ever exposed its iniquities without exciting abhorrence in Protestant hearers, and arousing anger in the breasts of Roman Catholics? What caused their anger? Elsewhere as well as here, I am persuaded that many were angry because they believed their church misrepre

were employed to this end. Dr. Doyle's evidence before a parliamentary committee, and his celebrated Pastoral Address, place this matter beyond dispute. 64 Then as to tithes," writes this bishop, when the repeated professions and oaths of the past years had answered their purpose," employ against this devouring impost all the resources of your wit and talent, with all the means which the law allows." Were not the Protestant clergy denounced when this pastoral advice was read from the altars of the Roman Catholic chapels, to multitudes whose national prejudices and religious feelings prepared them passionately to embrace it? But Dr. Doyle meant no violence-it was "but poison in jest." He recommended only the play of wit-he even warned his subjects against crime, and directed them to preserve "a salutary dread of the laws which guarded tithe." True; but was this salutary dread likely to ripen into submission to the law, or to become embittered into hatred of it? A single consideration will enable you to decide.

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Dr. Doyle knew the individuals he addressed-the clergy who read his Pastoral from their altars knew them; and you can judge how they were likely to be influenced by their bishop's advice, when you have read his portraiture of their character. Pastoral is addressed "to the deluded people illegally combined under the unmeaning appellation of Whitefect and Blackfeet, in that part of the Queen's county which lies within the diocese of Leighlin." I shall have occasion to allude to the confederacy in which these persons were engaged: I content myself for the present with placing, as it is drawn by Dr. Doyle, their character before you. "Who then are you, who are illegally combined? The most active and prominent amongst you are old offenders, thieves, liars, drunkards, fornicators, quarrellers, blasphemers, men who have abandoned all the duties of religion, and whom God, I fear, has given over to a reprobate sense, and to the passions of shame, &c. &c. But is it lawful, or is it reasonable, that you, or a banditti composed of such as you, should sit in judgment and execute your decrees against any person, whether that person be innocent or guilty? Where is your authority for doing so? By what rule is the punishment to be proportioned to the offence? Who will try the merits of the case in the absence of the accused? And how or by whom is the sentence to be carried into effect? &c. &c.

"Cowardly, base, wicked, ungrateful men, what have you done? You have commenced by an unlawful and impious oath, in which you called the God of holiness to witness your crime; you enlarged your combination by force and violence;

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