that of the Lord High Chancellor of England.

And if all this were

conceded, think ye that they would be content, while their religion was excluded from the throne itself, and while any other religion than theirs was established in Ireland? No, Sir; it were idle to expect it.

And I must add, that the ultimate object of their priesthood, to become the Establishment in Ireland, is as fair, and their claims for that as reasonable, as any which they now avow. You have one form of religion established in England, the religion of the majority: you have another established in Scotland, the form that best pleases the major part of our Northern fellow-subjects. And why-may an Irish Papist well demand-why should not Popery be established in Ireland? Is it, that the principles of the British constitution are inconsistent with the political support of Popery in any part of his Majesty's dominions? Assuredly not so. Look at CANADA; and there you will see Popery established by British law. I know that a distinction has been set up between its establishment, and the political support and endowment of tithes, which it there receives. But it is a distinction without a difference.

They

That there are in Ireland some of the Popish communion, men of property, and of cultivated minds, who do not propose to themselves the overthrow of the present Establishment, I believe. naturally dread the violent convulsion, which would, probably, accompany such a change: and though abundantly dissatisfied with the existing order of things, they yet would rather bear its evils, than seek a remedy for them by a civil war. To lessen the causes of that dissatisfaction, which such men feel,-(to lessen them as much as possible, for, under a Protestant Establishment, they cannot be wholly removed) is, I am persuaded, among the important objects of legislation for IRELAND.

But the great mass of its Popish population have nothing to lose, but the blood of which they are prodigal: and are little accustomed in any case to the cool calculation of consequences: while the priests -cut off by their celibacy from the ordinary connexions and engagements of civil society-have but one paramount object perpetually in view, the advancement of the interests of their Church; an object, which their system teaches them to pursue per fas et nefas. In the pursuit of this, they do generally lay themselves out with insidious industry, to keep alive in the minds of their people a feeling of hostility to BRITISH connexion; and to attach to the name of Sassenach the combined ideas of one of English blood, a heretic, an oppressor of the country, and usurper of the rights. of IRISHMEN.

Some of those men I have known to be distinguished by the title of loyal priests and I remember one of these, in a very disturbed district, who invited his Protestant neighbours to hear a pacific harangue, which he was to deliver from the altar, for the express purpose of quieting the minds of his people, and persuading them to give up their insurrectionary schemes. Yet Mark Antony's speech to the Roman populace, over the body of Cæsar, was not more insidiously inflammatory, than the pacific harangue of that loyal priest on that occasion-while it must be admitted that he did strongly impress upon the people the hopelessness of their being then able to

avenge the wrongs of ages, which he detailed, and the prudential necessity of their forbearing to break out into rebellion then. The priests of IRELAND I do not hesitate to denounce as, generally, the great agitators of that country; and if, in the rebellion of 1798, a ship had been freighted for Port Jackson, with all the officiating priests, I am persuaded that there would not have been expatriated six persons guiltless of misprision of treason. It would have been a measure not more illegal than others, which were then adopted; but much more effectual for restoring quiet to IRELAND.

I am aware, that in speaking of the Popish population of IRELAND as generally disaffected, I hold a language likely to offend both the advocates and opponents of their claims. Their long and general loyalty is a favourite theme: and even the ebullitions of joyous revelry, which the novel pageantry of a Royal visit lately excited in the metropolis, have been adduced as evidence that they are very good subjects of King George the Fourth. Some who talk in this manner, must undoubtedly know better: but they are afraid to avow the truth. For my part, I think it quite time that this House, and the British public, should be disabused; and informed that the deeplyrooted feeling of the great mass of Irish papists is hostile to GREAT BRITAIN; that the hope which lies nearest to their hearts is that of recovering their country at some future period, out of the hands of the English invaders. It is time that this House should know the real characters of the distemper for which we seek a remedy.

Yet let me not be understood as partaking in the fears of those, who apprehend an immediate or speedy rebellion in IRELAND. No, Sir: the leaders of disaffection there have learned more prudence. And however well pleased that there should be a continuance of that kind of smothered and harrassing warfare, which has distracted many parts of the island, yet, I am sure they would be forward to restrain the people from openly taking the field against the overwhelming power of GREAT BRITAIN. But let EUROPE be again involved in war, and let the military resources of GREAT BRITAIN be occupied as they have been in former wars of EUROPE, then I do avow my apprehension, that IRELAND will be lost to this country, lost probably after an internal struggle the most bloody.

Sir, I am not an Orange-man; and I am decidedly of opinion that, in a well-regulated state, no secret political association ought to be tolerated. But I must add, that the principles of a well-regulated state are not applicable to IRELAND: and that, combined as the numerical majority of its populace is against the existing laws and constitution, I cannot wonder that the minority should combine for their own preservation and the maintenance of the existing order. Nor do I think that the latter combination can be either safely or effectually put down, while the former continues: and I repeat it, that the former must continue, as long as the religious Establishment of the country is Protestant, and the great mass of its population Popish.

What then is to be done? what can be done for that unhappy country! You are moved to go into a Committee upon its state. But is this House prepared to go to the root of the evil? And if not, what use in deceiving yourselves and the nation, by employing

temporary palliatives? You can but keep military possession of IReLAND, while she is a hostile country, and the ground of her hostility continues unremoved. This is undoubtedly a very precarious tenure; much more so than many flatter themselves; and every year it will become more and more precarious. But if this must be the course adopted, abandon the inconsistent notion of applying British law and British liberty to that country. These are in fact little suited to a people combined against established law and order. That they will cease to be so combined, if what is absurdly called Catholic emancipation be conceded, the advocates of that measure are fond of representing. But the expectation is vain and one of the reasons for which I am favourable to that concession is, that its inefficacy for the quieting of IRELAND may be the sooner discovered. Already the claims of the Irish papists, (I say, their claims-for they have long ceased to hold the language of petitioners) go far beyond any of the civil privileges formerly demanded, and obviously beyond what can be granted them consistently with the maintenance of the Protestant Establishment. But let every concession be made, which can be made consistently with that; let it be made without further opposition or delay; and then it will be seen, whether there be not ulterior objects in view of the agitators of IRELand.

I would particularly urge the prompt removal of the existing disqualifications, which prevent Papists from sitting in Parliament; because I am persuaded that this concession may be made most safely. It is not in this house that factious demagogues are formidable to the state. The and the would dwindle into harmless insignificance within these walls. But if you apprehend that too many of such firebrands might be imported, let the concession, which I advocate, be accompanied by an Act, abolishing the elective franchise of forty-shilling freeholders. To the rabble, who at present exercise that privilege, the privilege is not worth a straw; and it were nonsense to talk of its abolition as any deprivation to them. They are mere machines, worked either by the land-owner or the priest; and are certainly too much under the controlling influence of the latter, to be safely trusted with such civil power. But our legislation for IRELAND has hitherto proceeded with an absurdity of inconsistence, at once laughable and melancholy.

I have spoken, as persuaded that the House is not prepared to go to the root of the evils in that country, or to look them fairly in the face. But perhaps some are disposed to say-" While you speak of the tranquillity of IRELAND as hopeless under any regimen which you think likely to be applied, what is that course which you conceive would tranquillize her, if adopted?" I feel some difficulty in replying to such a question; not from any dubiousness in my own judgment, but from uncertainty whether a plain answer be quite consistent with prudence. This much, however, I may say :-If I have rightly traced the disorders of IRELAND to her Popish population and her Protestant establishment, is it not plain that the only effectual remedy must be either to make Popery the religious establishment there, or altogether to remove the object of contention, by having

no religious establishment in that country, but leaving the Protestants to support their own clergy, as the Papists support theirs?

In mentioning this remedy, let me be understood-not as recommending it, not as saying that it would be our wisdom and our duty to employ it. I simply mark it as, in my view, the only remedy which would meet the nature of the disease. But it may perhaps be wiser to allow the disease to take its course, or even to let the patient die, than employ such a remedy. It may perhaps be our duty, rather to lose IRELAND ultimately, than to cease providing and supporting a RELIGION for her, which her people will not accept. This may be political wisdom, for reasons which I am too shallow a politician to penetrate. And if this be so, I can only say that I admire the religious zeal of our legislature, and the high cost at which they are ready to promote-(shall I say?)—the good of souls. I admire their religious zeal for others the more, because I observe how little many of them care about the matter for themselves. Sir, the honourable members who laugh, sufficiently betray their conviction, that RELIGION-in its real import as connected with the conscience— has nothing in the world to do with the affair; that the kingdom of the Clergy and the kingdom of God are altogether distinct.

However this may be, there are some who think that the period will yet arrive, when human governments shall discover that they have stepped quite aside from their proper province, in providing religion for their subjects, in pretending to take care of their souls, and to interfere with the concerns of another world. There are some, I say, so simple as to imagine, that the rulers of this world have properly nothing to do-in their official capacity-but with the things of this world; and that their whole province is the civil conduct and temporal concerns of the people. They imagine that the connexion of CHURCH and STATE is as impolitic as it is unnatural; that it is the crafty device of ecclesiastics, seeking their own aggrandizement by imposing the incumbrance of their alliance on kings and legislators. Men of these sentiments I know: and I have perceived that it is more difficult to refute them, than to put them down by that outcry of the churchmen of old-" GREAT IS DIANA OF THE EPHESIANS."

But whatever may be said for or against the policy of employing state-religion, as an engine of government,—(and I would not strenuously contest that point with any)—I must, as a CHRISTIAN, avow my decided conviction that CHRISTIANITY is incapable of being so employed; and that no politically-established religion either is or can be CHRISTIANITY: I mean the Christianity of the New Testament. I am well aware, Sir, of the legal principle, that Christianity is a part and parcel of the law of this country: and-in the legal sense-I by no means wish to controvert it. But I am aware also, that this is one of the many fictions of law; and that the thing called Christianity, and embodied with the law of England, is most unchristian. Upon this topic I can hold no measured or ambiguous language.

The attempt to embody Christianity with the political constitution of any state, is an attempt to falsify the word of CHRIST, when he uttered that memorable saying-" My kingdom is not of this world." In this spiritual "fornication with the kings of the earth," the clergy

have been the great panders, and the church of Rome has been "the great whore:" but she is also "the mother of harlots," and has many daughters, who have left her house, to prosecute on their own account the same unclean trade. The high-church party in this country acknowledge and boast of their relationship to the papal see: for to support their profane pretension to the character of successors of the Apostles, they are content to trace their succession through the most impious and profligate of the Roman pontiffs, who have blasphemously arrogated to themselves the title of CHRIST'S Vicegerents upon earth.

No marvel that such men are afraid of the circulation of the Scriptures for it has been clearly proved even by a clergyman,* that the whole distinction between clergy and laity is without a shadow of foundation in the Scriptures of the New Testament; and this comes to be progressively known to those who have any ear for the word of God. But neither is it any marvel, that among the most zealous partisans of the established church, among the loudest vociferators for the happy union of church and state, are found the men who care not a straw for any religion, but as they think the profession of it connected with their interests. And these indeed are the churchmen most bitterly exasperated against conscientious Dissenters from the establishment; and most disposed to reclaim them, if it were allowed, by the infliction of pains and penalties, as in days of old. This is all quite consistent with a so-called church, of which the avowed head may be such a bloody and libidinous tyrant as our 8th HENRY. It is only marvellous how-in a country where the Scriptures have been circulated so long-any reader of them can confound with CHRISTIANITY such a mongrel, monstrous production of the unnatural connexion between Church and State.

Many think, or pretend to think, that this connexion ought to be maintained, in order to prevent the prevalence of irreligion and consequent immorality in the nation. But the fact is, that it-more than anything else-promotes irreligion and impiety. The discovery is quickly made by acute and reflecting individuals, that the statereligion is a humbug, the device of worldly politicians for their political ends. And the same discovery sooner or later forces itself on the mass of the community; few of whom have any inclination to examine the higher and only true standard of pure religion, or to distinguish between genuine CHRISTIANITY and that which is put forward by public authority under the name.

But those who urge the hackneyed argument, that religion is the great basis of civil society, and that we therefore ought to provide some state-religion for the people, pretty plainly avow that they are not nice about the characters of the religion which they would establish. They are only anxious to enforce and regulate the external worship of some god or gods, lest the people should worship none. Now I need not go beyond IRELAND for a proof, that rulers may save themselves all trouble and expense upon this object. There we see a people, not only rejecting the religion provided for them by their

* DR. CAMPBELL in his Lectures on Ecclesiastical History.