lerance at the present moment. What is said four or five times in the year, and what is the place in which it is said? "This is the Catholic faith, which unless a man have, without doubt he shall perish everlasting"-which, unless a man faithfully believe, he shall not be saved! Let the Dissenters, they who would carry on a crusade against their Roman Catholic brethren, remember that they have persecuting doctrines. He would quote these doctrines, and he should like to know who it was that preached them? It was John Calvin-venerated by Presbyterians and Anabaptists. Calvin was one who not merely urged it as a duty, but actually carried it into operation. This did not rest on Calvin's precepts; it was not a thing said and then forgotten; but in the course of his life he acted on the precept, and that too by an act of the most atrocious perfidy-by opening letters. (Loud cheers and laughter.) Then he, as it was said even in a late case, entrapped his victim from Vienna; and having him in Geneva, his victim (Servetus) was accused of Arian or Socinian doctrines, there tried, and, after an absolute mockery of a trial, was condemned to death and burned.

The debate having been again adjourned, some discussion took place the next evening respecting the Bishop of Cashel's charge alluded to on the former night, and since laid on the table of the House. The Duke of Wellington and Lord Campbell both pronounced that the bishop had fairly cleared himself from the charges of Lord Normanby, who stated that the authority for his statement was a Dr. Fogarty, parish priest of Lismore. This subject

having dropped, Lord Clancarty resumed the debate, opposing the Bill.

Earl Spencer strenuously supported the measure. He contended, that it was the duty of the State to provide religious instruction for the people, wherefore he was a friend to the Established Church in this country; and seeing how large a portion of the Irish people were Roman Catholics, he could not refuse his assent to the Bill. He combated the opinion that the Roman Catholic Church was antagonistic to the Anglican; expressing surprise at hearing that doctrine from prelates who believe that there is some mysterious sanctity in their own ordination, because it has descended through a course of Roman Catholic bishops - bishops who flourished, be it remembered, during the very worst times of the Roman Catholic Church. As to the doctrines of the Roman Catholics, he appealed to the facts for proof that they are all over the world good and faithful subjects, and although it was a dogma of their religion, that it was immutable-meaning that it is always under the direct influence of the Holy Spirit, it had been modified by the progress of civilization and knowledge, which had overcome many of its ancient doctrines. The disaffection of the Irish people, if it existed, was to be attributed not to their religious doctrines, but to the systematic misrule and bad faith of this country. He supported the measure, in the hope that it was not to be an isolated one, but only the commencement of a different course of policy.

The Bishop of Norwich made some brief, but forcible remarks

on the intolerance of those who charge the clerical supporters of the Bill even with infidelity and falsehood; on the drift of the petitions emanating principally from the Dissenters, against all endowments, and therefore not to be cited by the supporters of State endowments; and on the failure of harshness and intolerance to promote Protestantism in Ireland. He alluded to the spectacle which he had seen at Baden, of a church used in the morning for mass, and then appropriated in the afternoon, by order of the Roman Catholic bishop, to the Lutheran service. He wished to see, not exactly such an arrangement, but some of that spirit imitated in this country. He considered the measure one of the most benevolent, one of the most called for, one of the most useful, that had been proposed in the nineteenth century.

Lord Monteagle advocated the measure as the most important that had been introduced, perhaps since the Union, certainly since the Relief Act. Its practical effect would be very great; as showing the Irish, not only that the English felt no jealousy of their religion, but were prepared to countenance and support it; supporting it, not as that religion which the English would choose, but as that which the Irish themselves had chosen. He enlarged very effectively on the arguments derived from the British dependencies; showing how, if the grant were refused, the Legisla ture would deny to the Irish what was granted to the Hindoos in the institutions at Benares and elsewhere; though, he thought any form of Christianity must be regarded as superior to Hindoo doc

trine. He looked on the measure as merely a step towards others; but he emphatically declared, that as he valued the peace of the country, he never would rob the Protestant Church to endow the Roman Catholic. The measure, if it were carried by a large majority, would tell upon the question of Repeal, it would show the people of Ireland, that the Imperial Parliament consulted their interests more truly and effectually than the Irish Parliament ever had.

The Bishop of St. David's argued for the Bill, in a long and well-reasoned speech. Though admitting the extent of the opposition to the measure, he could not approve of its manner; and he remarked, that it was conducted so as to disguise the wide differences of religious opinion among those who supported the Bill, and also to interfere with a just perception of the differences between those who supported and those who opposed it. He contended that no principle was involved in the measure; for the arguments against it applied equally to the annual grant. He showed how those who supported it did not recognise that to be truth which on other occasions they had pronounced to be error. He strongly deprecated the use of the term "idolatrous and superstitious," as liable to abuse and provocative of bad feeling; and on that account he wished such language removed even from public documents. No one could be so absurd as to suppose that the Bill directly recognised the truth of the Roman Catholic religion; nor did it appear that it would increase the number of its adherents. It could not, therefore, be said to tend to the propagation of error. He showed

how idle it was to deduce wide inferences from isolated passages picked out of books used in Roman Catholic colleges; and how passages of the most opposite tendency might equally be selected; citing from a Roman Catholic authority the rule for the conduct of the confessional, that extreme caution must be used in questioning on the subject of purity, since it was better to fall short in a literal completeness of confession than to arouse passions which were dormant. You must test doctrine not by theory but by its practical effects; and where could there be greater domestic morality than in Ireland? With regard to oaths, there was, no doubt, in Roman Catholic writers an overstrained anxiety to meet every possible case; but did any of their lordships believe that a Roman Catholic was less sensible than a Protestant of the sanctity of an oath? Supposing the doctrines taught at Maynooth were of the Ultramontane kind, even that would be a most visionary source of alarm. It was true that the Pope had never recalled the most extravagant pretensions put forth by his predecessors; he was, however, not only a spiritual but a temporal sovereign, ruling a state subject to despotic authority; he was surrounded by political enemies, assailing his throne on democratic principles; he was the ally of every despotic and absolute Government: but there never could be any real sympathy and alliance between him and Irish agitators, entertaining the same democratic principles as those from whom he dreaded the greatest danger to his temporal authority at home. The priest was naturally disposed to preserve order, quiet, and submission to authority; and if it was

otherwise in Ireland, it was owing to the state of the country. He supported the measure, as conciliatory; as placing the Irish clergy on an equal footing with the Roman Catholic clergy in our dependencies; as fulfilling an implied contract; as tending to improve the character of the clergy, to remove one of the great barriers to the physical prosperity of Ireland, by helping a more general diffusion of knowledge in that country, and even as paving the way to the reception of a purer form of religion. If that were the last day of his public life, there was no duty which he should perform with more satisfaction than that of supporting the Bill under discussion.

The Earl of Charleville supported the motion for inquiry, and insisted that Roman Catholics entertained lax doctrines on the subject of oaths; and adverted to Mr. O'Connell's recent proceeding, as proving the necessity of more vigorous government to maintain the peace in Ireland. He cited the oath taken by Mr. O'Connell, on becoming Lord Mayor of Dublin, in October 1841, solemnly abjuring without mental reservation, all intention of subverting the Protestant Church Establishment; contrasting it with a resolution proposed by him at a meeting of the Repeal Association, in April 1842, demanding the total abrogation of the tithe-rentcharge. He also cited a canon law, promulgated by Pope Gregory the Ninth in 1809, declaring ecclesiastics not bound by an oath of allegiance to their prince.

Lord Stanley reinforced many of the arguments for the Bill; treating Lord Roden's motion not as one really for inquiry, but as

meant to defeat the Bill. He declared his disbelief that all the petitions spoke the spontaneous opinion of the English people. He did not admit that the Bill would necessarily lead to endow ment of the Roman Catholic clergy; but he avowed that religious scruples would not deter him from consenting even to that measure. At the close of his speech, he called upon their lordships to consider the deep responsibility of their vote that night. While, however, he could not express the alarm and dismay which their rejection of the mea sure would occasion in his mind, he had too high a sense of the wisdom and patriotism of the illustrious assembly he was addressing to fear it would involve the country in the dreadful consequences of such a decision.

The House first divided on Lord Roden's amendment, which was negatived by 155 to 59; majority against the proposed inquiry,

96.

of England would be favourable to such a measure, he did not think it would be prudent in any Government to propose it. He did look forward with hope to a time when a change would take place; but there were now so many difficulties in the way, that he did not know how any one could conceive that the Government had any intention of proposing such a measure. It would be for the Government to watch the feeling of the country on the subject; and in the mean time, they proposed this measure as one which was important in itself, and as an earnest to the people of Ireland that it was their wish to do all that lay in their power to conciliate them."

On the motion for the third reading, the Bill was supported by Lord Campbell, Lord Ellenborough, and the Duke of Wellington, and warmly opposed by the Duke of Newcastle. The Bishop of Llandaff moved that it be read a third time that day six months. On a division there