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peace and prosperity of the empire depend, and must depend. In vain shall the fiscal arrangements of the country shew a balance in favour of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; in vain shall the interests of agriculture and manufactures be harmonized; in vain (with all due deference to the right honourable member for Edinburgh) shall literature be encouraged and flourishthere is a worm in the gourd,' so long as this question is neglected, or dealt with in opposition to the unchangeable principles of revealed truth and right reason. Why is Ireland the burdensome stone,' under the weight of which one British minister after another sinks and retires? Because this question has been so far answered wrong, practically wrong, and its consequences have been growing worse and worse. Only let England, in the might that still belongs to her, answer this question right, practically right, and after a little noisy, but comparatively harmless bluster, Ireland will be quiet, and manageable, and improving. There is no more certain truth, even in mathematical science, than that on which the following Letters are founded; namely, that Romanism is incurable, and must be dealt with, for the peace of the community, as wise men deal with madness. Judicious restraint is genuine charity. Fond indulgence is infatuation. England is still strong enough to act wisely. O! that she were wise enough to act firmly! now, even now, and soon: for her opportunity may be short.”—(pp. 3—6.)

After this introduction, follow the letters so described: and then comes this conclusion.

"Thus far, these pointed letters.

"And now, my Lord, permit me to ask, with that honest frankness which is so graceful a companion of true respect, Are these things so or not? Can your Lordship, or any of your noble or right honourable colleagues, deny the facts, or answer the arguments herein adduced, or allay the apprehensions herein so reasonably expressed?

"Your Lordship will observe, that the point on which the writer especially dwells is not a matter of speculative theology, but of practical intolerance. He alleges, not without proof, that by canons and decrees, frequently acted upon by authority, and never yet by the same authority repealed or disclaimed, Rome is pledged, whenever and wherever she has the power, to the extermination of heretics. Is this really true? Is Romanism a great conspiracy against all Protestant governments, professing allegiance in hypocrisy, and watching her opportunity to throw off the mask? Does she give dispensations for the profession of Protestantism itself to competent labourers, who under that disguise become more efficient partisans? Does she employ regicides, under circumstances which invest the most flagrant crimes with the captivating halo of heroism for truth? Does she bring all the promised rewards, and threatened terrors, of eternity to bear upon ignorant minds, in order to render them subservient tools for the attainment of her temporal supremacy? And is it safe, then, I say not to true religion-many, too many, disregard that but is it safe to personal liberty, wilfully to shut our eyes to the existence of such a conspiracy? The question in hand is not one of religious opinions. To place the desired exclusion of Romanists from offices of trust and power, on the ground of religion, and thereupon to raise the cry of liberty of conscience, is grossly dishonest; and to be deceived by the misrepresentation, is grossly absurd. The question, as it applies to us, is one of bodily safety from manifestly proved danger, and not one of freedom of opinion. To transfer it from the temporal welfare of the community, and pretend that it belongs to the region of religious liberty, requires that combination of much confidence and little conscience, which we see so remarkably exhibited, both in and out of Parliament.

Conscience towards God can never be urged as an available plea for injury to man. When a man's religion, or what he is pleased to call his re

ligion, involves treachery, to say no more, towards any of his fellow-men, it is an impudent insult to our common sense, to invoke, in defence of the free exercise of such a religion, the sacred rights of conscience. Yet it is precisely behind such a masked battery as this, that Romanism is now not only hiding herself from the indignation of England, but actually gaining efficient English help, while she is mustering and concentrating her forces for the overthrow of all that has been most dear and most ennobling to England for the last three centuries.

"My Lord, the direction of Rome's next campaign is indicated with sufficient clearness. A Bill for the extension of the elective franchise in Ireland; a Bill for the equalisation of municipal reform in Ireland and England; these, and kindred measures, already prepared for the approaching session, will be urged as lingering items of tardy justice to Ireland, and all opposition to them will be denounced as bigotry of exclusion for religious opinion sake. No serious or real attack will be made on the Irish Church; only Mr. Ward's annual assault will be supported so far as to renew the appearance before the nation of a great grievance to conscientious Roman Catholics. To give effect to this manœuvre, gross misrepresentations will be indulged in. The want of information, or the want of power effectually and immediately to make use of it, on the part of the friends of the Irish Church, will be calculated upon; and in the debate on Mr. Ward's motion, after Mr. Shaw, and Mr. Colquhoun, and perhaps one or two others, have spoken, it is highly probable that the right honourable and learned member for Tipperary will deliver another exciting oration, more remarkable for oratorical effect than for scrupulousness of accuracy.

"Under cover of the fruitless discussion thus raised, and the invidious hardships still said to be inflicted on the Roman Catholics of Ireland, the elective franchise Bill, and the municipal reform Bill, will pass both Houses, and become law. By means of these measures, skilfully worked in the counties and boroughs, the Romish hierarchy in Ireland will, at the general election next following, add so largely to the number of their nominees in the House of Commons, that no British minister will be able to carry on the government of the country, without making terms with them.

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"The terms will be skilfully selected, for the further prostration of the real power of Protestant England, and for hasting, as speedily as possible without causing premature alarm, the time when Romanism may venture to be sinAnd then, my Lord, the illuminati of the movement, who have been her dupes in helping her to climb, will find no more mercy at her hands, than the real Protesters who have uttered and published such unheeded warnings as these. When once she regains the eminence from which it will be safe, without danger to the faithful, to republish her long smothered, but still living and panting, decree de heretico comburendo, the ladder of her ascent, as well as every other excommunicated thing, will be consigned to the flames.

"But it is asked, What practical good can possibly arise from such statements as these? Are not practical men of influence, of all parties, of one and the same mind upon this subject? Is it not un fait accompli, that Romanism is recognised as an integral portion_of our common Christianity? Are not the lips of Protestant gentlemen in Parliament sealed, by the courtesies of society, from every utterance and every allusion disrespectful to Romanism? And how utterly useless therefore, how ludicrously unseasonable, how necessarily abortive, must such a publication as this be?

"If the present Parliament were the final court of appeal, and if there were no Protestant nation behind, with a largely and increasingly circulated Bible in their hands, I would fully acknowledge the justice of these disheartening questions. And to speak candidly, my Lord, I am unable to entertain much hope, that the course of legislation for Rome, which has been so long pursued, will, or can, be arrested by any force of argument or reason. A de

termination not to be convinced is but too manifest; present ease is courted; every sound of alarm is resented: an anxiety to find Rome, not what she was, and what she has sworn to remain, but what the progress of light and liberality ought to make her, is greedily indulged; an impression that it is impossible to go back to restrictive laws, and equally impossible to stand still, urges forward the infatuated movement. Statesmen of all parties are caught in the whirlpool, mistaking the blandishments of the syren for the charms of genuine liberty. What the prophet said of Tyre, is now true of England— Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters,' and there is too much reason to fear the application of what follows-‘Thy riches and thy fairs, thy merchandise, thy mariners and thy pilots, thy calkers and the occupiers of thy merchandise, and all thy men of war that are in thee, and in all thy company which is in the midst of thee, shall fall in the midst of the seas, in the day of thy ruin.'

Looking at the operation of second causes, and speaking after the manner of men, the most feasible hope now left to us, and it is rather forlorn, seems to be, that Rome, with all her wisdom, and all her skill, may miscalculate; and attempt coercion before she has full power to secure final success. One Inquisition squeeze would go further to rouse the nation from its present apathy upon this subject, than ten thousand eloquent lectures on canons and decretals which are supposed to be dead and buried. But the squeeze must be at home. In Tahiti, or Madeira, or even in Ireland, it will not produce the desired effect.

"My Lord, we are clearly hastening towards a tremendous struggle; and it is every way worthy of the sagacity of a great statesman to inquire, what must the end be. I do not mean which party shall be victorious in the field, but what must be the result politically, whichever party triumphs? Must it not be that hated thing exclusion? Should Protestant England come triumphant out of the conflict, will she peril her liberties again by opening her offices of trust and power to sworn subjects of a foreign potentate; or, will she not rather, and justly, plead past perfidy in full justification of future indispensable exclusion? And should Romanism prevail, will she forget or neglect her high commission to take possession of the whole earth, and clear the inheritance of St. Peter from every lingering taint of heresy? Exclusion is inevitable, in the long run; though on which side, or of what kind, it may not be easy to predict-whether exclusion from political power of all who will not be Protestants, or exclusion from earthly existence of all who will not be Romanists.

"If the conviction that our present course, long continued, must lead to such a sequel as this, could become practical in men's minds, now, in time; the intervening tragedy, frightful to contemplate, and otherwise apparently inevitable, might be avoided. English Protestants have still the power to reach one alternative of the sequel without bloodshed; but they are daily allowing that power to be wrenched or coaxed, or both, out of their hands; and, in their horror at the notion of being uncivil or illiberal, they are laying up in store for themselves the dire necessity of either shedding men's blood, or having their own blood shed by the hands of men.

"I will not weary your Lordship by reciting details of Rome's progress in England. Our newspapers, teem with them, week after week. Activity and united energy are proverbially the characteristics of assailants; while to keep defenders to their posts is difficult, and if they be incredulous, or otherwise insensible to the impending danger, it is impossible. Such is our position and the lines are closing upon us on every side. From the court to the cottage, from the university to the charity school, the emissaries of Rome, in greater or lesser degrees of disguise, are multiplying their skilfully adjusted labours. Freed from all legal restraint, and stimulated by incipient successes into the animating hope of final triumph, they are becoming bolder and more determined. In the various departments of practical life, Pro

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testants cannot compete with them on equal terms; because no Protestant, in the exercise of delegated authority, will exclude a Romanist from employment on account of his creed; while on the contrary, Romanists, so situated, contrive, without committing themselves against the letter of the law, to establish, by petty vexations, a system of practical persecution against Protestants to their effectual exclusion. This is not fancy; but fact. My Lord, I know it, and some of its terrible consequences. This sore is becoming more and more irritated, and bad blood' is more and more engendered in the community.

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mode of preventing an atrocious civil war, in the course of a few years, is the re-enactment of such wise and moderate political restrictions on Roman Catholics as would deprive them of all hope of subjugating England to the Papal yoke. This may be done without the slightest interference with the true rights of conscience, or the true enjoyment of liberty and safety for person and property. Our object should be, not in any wise to injure them, but simply to prevent them from injuring us.

"" And now, my Lord, why should not this signal service be rendered to the country by your Lordship! What! the great leader of all the Liberals turn thorough Protestant! That would be a change! Yes, doubtless, it would be a great and noble change. And why not? Must all great changes in public men be for the worse? And is it impossible to have any change for the better? Look, my Lord, afresh into the word of God, and into the history of England. Let the great principles of revealed truth, and the eloquent lessons of experience have their due weight, and their fair application. Contrast the miserable, crest-fallen, creedless Whig of 1846-of course I mean in his public character-with the high, the noble, the patriotic, the Christian and Protestant Whig of 1688: and after your wanderings, for a few comparatively inexperienced years, amongst the mists and fogs of liberalism, we shall have the happiness, and your country the safety, of seeing your Lordship on the rock and in the daylight of England's Scriptural Church, and of finding in your Lordship's veins a portion of that noble blood which flowed from your renowned ancestor in defence of England's Protest against Rome's usurpation.

"My Lord, the unfading chaplet of true Christian patriotism is set before you. Stand forth and grasp it. Instead of going down to posterity

'Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung,'

as one of the mediocrity of root who were beguiled by the plausible sophistries of an infidel philosophy to betray the best interests of their country into the hands of a deceitful foe; inscribe on the page of history a nobler record of a statesman who, in times of general declension, in the face of an exasperated party turned into formidable opposition, at the risk of place and power, and in an honest acknowledgment of past errors, arose in the hour of need, gave clear notice of the impending danger, and in the majesty of God's truth, the only sure foundation of political righteousness,-appealed to England, free, reformed, and as yet Protestant England, to give him a Protestant House of Commons, to carry on with vigour and efficiency the Protestant government of a sworn Protestant sovereign. Proclaim your convictions upon evidence at last attended to, and experience at last become practical; not only that the Church of Rome should not be endowed, either in her hierarchy or her colleges; but also, that no subject of the court of Rome can with safety be entrusted with political power under a free Protestant government. Announce your determination to act on this conviction in the next Parliament, stake your political existence on the recovery of our national Protestantism; and then, APPEAL TO THE NATION!

"If you succeed!-0, my Lord, let the bare thought of such a thing, extravagant as it may seem to ordinary vulgar minds, kindle your patrician

More honourable

soul to a high and noble daring in the righteous cause. far to fail in the attempt, than lose the golden opportunity of making it. But make it well and wisely, i. e. honestly and boldly, and there is no risk of failure. Bishop Ridley's candle, though dim and flickering, is not extinguished. It shines upon the pages of inspiration in ten thousand times ten thousand secret closets. The slumbering Protestantism of Britain, in despite of cold indifferentism, factious voluntaryism, and treacherous tractarianism, is only waiting for a national leader of acknowledged competence and honesty, to blaze forth in undiminished brilliancy and power. It is oppressed at present under a weight of disappointment. Its kindly intended, but grievously mistaken, generosity in 1829 has produced these disheartening results, and thousands who were favourable to that fatal measure are now bitterly repenting of their mistake. Only let a fair prospect dawn, of deliverance from the disastrous defile, and throughout the British lines despondency will give place to a revived and triumphant enthusiasm. 'And who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?' "Your Lordship will excuse my earnestness, when I assure you, that I sincerely believe all I have written. And more, much more. I have confined my observations (perhaps too exclusively) to what is anti-Social in the Romish system, as more immediately demanding your Lordship's official attention. My own mind and heart are much more deeply exercised by what is anti-Christian in that system: because this involves not England's welfare as a nation only, but the everlasting salvation of Englishmen, and in one sense I may add of all men in all nations; for if Romanism become dominant in England, there remains no barrier against her universal domination. Shrink not, my Lord, from the voice of the preacher. Everlasting salvation is indeed involved, though the scoffers of these last days may attempt to laugh it to scorn; and the one only way of salvation is involved, though latitudinarian philosophers, in the plenitude of a charity which costs them nothing, may pronounce it monstrous bigotry.

"However it may suit the present convenience of ungodly men, to plead impartial dealing among their fellows, in excuse for wilful disobedience to the plain commandments of God; or to deify indifferentism in the senate and the council chamber, on pretence of confining religion to the closet; the solemn hour of retribution is at hand. God will not be mocked. 'Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he reap.' There is immortality in man, and veracity in God; and threescore years and ten bear slight comparison with eternity.

"I need not add to your Lordship, that there is no name given under heaven among men available for a happy eternity, but the name of Jesus Christ-the one and only Mediator always, with the one and once offered sacrifice, and only once-and that if any man be in Him, he is a new creature. Unseen things are to such a man real things. God is not an abstraction to the mind of such a man, but a living present Person; and the politics of this world, though an arena for such a man's duty, supply no home to his heart.

"I must conclude. And now, my Lord, whatever reception this publication may meet with, from your Lordship or others, I shall have in my own bosom the satisfying and tranquillizing assurance that I have made an honest effort in the service of my country and my God, in what I believe to be the right direction and if I thereby incur any personal unkindness, or worse than unkindness, from the enemies of our church and nation, I shall have the further satisfaction of cordially forgiving all such attacks, and sincerely praying for God's best blessing, his converting grace, upon all my assailants. I have the honour to be, my Lord,

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"With the unfeigned respect due to your Lordship's
"high station and character,

"Your obedient Servant,

"HUGH M'NEILE."

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