of government, an insult to those to whom the grant is tendered, and a grievous wrong to the consciences of all who object to any appropriation of the public money to ecclesiastical purposes. The Conservative minister was warmly supported by the leader of the Whig section of the House. Lord John Russell, with all the warmth of a new born friendship-of which we have had several instances of late-came to his assistance, and the temper of his speech was indicative of the folly of those dissenters who look to his lordship as the beau ideal of a statesman. He was not satisfied with affirming the proposition of the Premier, but avowed his readiness to concur in any measure for the endowment of the Romish clergy; and that too, on the ground of his preferring the establishment system, to the voluntary principle. His words should be deeply pondered by every dissenter:

'I must confess,' said his lordship, that, with those gentlemen who oppose it on the ground that both in the proposal itself of settling this grant by Bill, making it a permanent endowment, and in the reasons the right honourable gentlemen gave for that endowment, there is an indication of further measures than he himself proposed to night, or than the measure itself contains,-I say that with them I am inclined to agree so far, except that, although a ground of opposition with them, it is a ground of concurrence upon my part. The right honourable gentleman stated truly, at the end of his speech, that do what you will, the priests who are brought up in the Roman Catholic faith are to be the spiritual guides of the great majority of the people. He urged, I think most truly and unanswerably, that if that is to be the object, it is your interest that your education should be as good, that the doctrines taught should be of a nature as much to elevate, that the education should be of a character as much to improve, as it is possible by education to improve, the character of that priesthood. In that argument I fully and entirely concur; and upon that ground I shall be most willing to give my vote in favour of the proposal of the government to-night. But it is impossible to hear such arguments without bearing in mind the whole condition of Ireland as it respects this country. Now I am not going to argue whether even with respect to this particular question, the house should or not adopt the motion of which my honourable friend near me, (Mr. Ward) has given a notice; but this I say, that arguments which are so sound, and as I think so incontrovertible, to induce this house to found an endowment for the education of the Roman catholic priesthood, will prove upon another occasion as sound and as incontrovertible with respect to an endowment for the maintenance of that priesthood. For my own part, preferring most strongly, and more and more by reflection, religious establishments to that which is called the voluntary principle. I am anxious to see the spiritual, the religious instructors of the great majority of the people of Ireland endowed and maintained by a provision furnished by the state. I do not hesitate to give that opinion. I am not committing any person on the part of the government, I am speaking independently for my

self, but I will not give this vote misleading any one by the notion, that if there came a question proposed in a manner in which I should think that it could practically and properly be carried into effect, for the payment of the Roman catholic priesthood, I should not think the reasons upon which I shall vote to-night equally conclusive to induce me to concur in that proposal.'

Of the noble member for London, we have frequently recorded our opinion. It has been in no grudging spirit that we have admitted the value of his past services; or sought to do justice to the claims of the Whigs on the gratitude of their countrymen. But our admiration has not blinded us to their faults, and we have long felt, what his lordship's speech,-illustrated by what he subsequently remarked in support of Mr. Ward's amendment—must now render evident to all but his blindest partizans, that the time of our separation has come, and that Whig alliances must be renounced in deference to the higher claims of religious duty. We have no disposition or right to censure his lordship's churchmanship. It has been known to us from the first, and has never been objected to as invalidating his title to our political confidence. But the case is materially altered, if his churchmanship involves an approval and support of new ecclesiastical imposts,the organization, in fact, of another establishment at the cost, and in violation of the principles of the protestant community. In the former case, the plea of antiquity and of vested interests might be alleged, but in the latter, we see an unblushing sacrifice of the religious to the secular, a profane tampering with conscience in order to perpetuate the unrighteous domination of the Irish church. It will be for dissenters to say, whether such a course is compatible with their continued support of his lordship as a political chief. Our own decision is in the negative, and we have strong confidence that this decision will speedily be adopted by the great majority of our friends. We know what may be said-what probably will be said against this, nor are we unapprised of its force, but we know also that we have rendered to the Whigs an ample return for the services they have done us. It is notorious-and the fact should serve to moderate the superciliousness of some Whig leaders— that the dissenters of Great Britain constitute the strength of the liberal party. Their support is more essential to Lord John, than his advocacy is to them; and he may yet live to feel, that in violating their consciences, and imposing on them additional church burdens, he is only cutting away the ground from beneath his own feet, and rendering himself as powerless as his position is a false one: We have been willing to bear with the churchmanship of our Whig allies. Whether right or not we have acquiesced in their protection of the existing hierarchies; but it is a totally different thing now that we are called on to submit to t

organization of a third establishment, for which, neither the plea of antiquity, nor that of truth, can be urged. In a house of 330, there was only one member found to protest against the measure, on its introduction, as an act of injustice to the British people, and that member, to his honour be it said, was Mr. Thomas Duncombe. Though unconnected with dissenters, he took a clear, straightforward, and honest view of the case, and with the manly bearing which is characteristic of his public life, he at once avowed, that he, 'would oppose the motion, because the vote was permanent in its character, on account of the sources from which the money was to be drawn, and also on account of the purposes to which it was to be applied. It was impossible not to see that the vote was intended as part of a scheme for the endowment of another church establishment in Ireland, to which the great majority of the people in this country did not subscribe. The measure had been called a restitution; he thought it an aggravated plunder; it might have been called a restitution had it been a measure for suppressing the esta blished church in Ireland, and appropriating its funds to general education. He denied that it was a mere question of degree; it was a question of principle. They found this vote an annual one, and they had no more right to make it permanent than they had to do the same with the Mutiny Act or the supplies. On the voluntary principle he should give his vote against the motion, to which, in justice to a large portion of his constituents, he could not give his assent.'

The motion of the premier was carried by a majority of 102; the numbers being 216 for, and 114 against it. This result was anticipated, and became the signal for immediate and intense agitation. Meetings were held in every part of the country. Churchmen and Dissenters, and amongst the latter Methodists, Independents and Baptists were instantly on the alert. The most moderate amongst ourselves were foremost in the agitation, and spoke with an irritability and violence strangely in contrast with the censures they had been accustomed to pass on their brethren. Thousands of petitions were forwarded against the measure, a large proportion of which distinctly repudiated the right of the legislature to vote public money for the support of any class of religionists whatsoever. Efforts were also made to obtain time in order to allow a fair opportunity for the expression of public feeling, but the minister was immovable, and the second reading of the Bill was therefore moved for on the 10th of April.

Of the protracted debate which followed, it would be idle to attempt an analysis. It affords us little satisfaction, and was marked, even beyond the ordinary course of parliamentary discussions, by a singular misapprehension of the matter in debate,

an almost absolute avoidance of the principle involved, and the grossest possible misconception of the ground of opposition on the part of protestant dissenters. Men of various political creeds, tories, whigs and radicals vied with each other in the zeal of their advocacy, occasionally enlivening their otherwise dull harangues by party criminations, or the spleen of personal invective. Division of opinion was much more marked on the conservative than on the liberal side of the House. Lord John Russell, Mr. Macaulay, and Sir George Grey spoke the sentiments and gave a tone to the policy of their followers, while Mr. Hume, Mr. Roebuck and other radicals were sufficiently infatuated to lend their support to a measure which, if carried out to its legitimate results, will raise up another formidable barrier to the progress of freedom, and the social welfare of the empire. A more illusive plea than that which was urged by the liberal members, in defence of their votes, was never heard in parliament. Ireland, it was said, has been misgoverned, the catholic population has been oppressed, the rights of the many have been sacrificed to the interests of the few, religion and sound policy have been equally violated by the maintenance of a protestant hierarchy which the people spurned, out of funds taken from the people's church; and, therefore, such was the non-sequitur of our legislators,-it was seemly and righteous to make all other religionists contribute to the support of an ecclesiastical institute which they deemed unscriptural and injurious -a fountain of error, a fruitful source of superstition and social debasement. One wrong was appealed to in justification of another; the outrage committed on the catholic was adduced in vindication of that proposed on the protestant. The misgovernment of centuries was to be atoned for by the perpetration of a new wrong of a precisely similar character, only on a different class of her Majesty's subjects. Protestant ascendancy was to give place, not to equality, for of that we are the advocates, but to the extension of the vicious principle of religious patronage to the catholic population. As they had loudly and justly com plained of the inequity of being compelled to support a church which they disapproved, their remonstrances are met by a proposition, not to relieve them from this burden, but to subject the protestant community to the same intolerable load. The viciousness of the plan, and the hollowness of the pretexts by which it was enforced are seen out of doors. The common sense of the nation protests against the injustice, whilst our senators in utter contempt of the popular will, amuse themselves with the flimsiest pleas which a shallow philosophy can furnish.

We admit the many and grievous wrongs of Ireland. When other voices were silent we denounced them, and pleaded,

honestly at least, that our catholic fellow countrymen were entitled equally with ourselves to share the privilege of the British constitution. For these rights, to the utmost limit, we are still prepared to contend. The constitution is theirs as well as ours, and he is no friend to popular freedom who would exclude from its pale, or deprive of a fraction of its benefits, the worshippers in any temple, or the abettors of any religious creed. We have, however, yet to learn that this has any thing to do with a public endowment of the church, or with the training of the priesthood of the papacy. To the former, its adherents are entitled by the common tenure of citizenship, while from the latter, they are debarred by the sacredness of conscience and the voluntary nature of religion. Let right be done to Ireland. Let it be done in a generous and confiding spirit. Let it be done under a sense of our past misdeeds, and with a liberality which betokens repentance as well as justice. The first step, however, in this line of policy, the only one consistent with sound principle and enlightened legislation, is the entire extinction of the protestant hierarchy of that country. This is the bane of Ireland, the outward and visible token of her misrule and degradation. It stands out before the eye of Europe, an anomaly which no reasoning can justify, and for which no necessity exists. Ireland will never be pacified, she ought not to be so, while this corporation is upheld. Its historical associations madden her sons, whilst its altars and worship are connected in their minds with the imprisonment, proscription and murder of their fathers. Our love of protestantism, therefore, combines with our sense of justice in demanding the overthrow of this system. There is no hope for protestantism in Ireland whilst it is presented to her sons through the medium of this politicoecclesiastical institution. They regard it as their oppressor, the heartless creed of a tyrannical lord, deaf alike to the dictates of justice and the pleadings of mercy. To the overthrow of this establishment, the so-called liberal members of the House should therefore have addressed themselves; but instead of this they have sought to renew its lease of gain, if not of power, by buying off the most formidable body of its assailants. The old hierarchy is to be protected by the creation of another, and that too, not at its expence, but at the cost of the community. It was well observed by Mr. Muntz, and we perfectly agree in his statement, that he wished to see all classes and sects have the fullest, and the freest, and the fairest exercise of their religious opinions and worship. But that was one of his strongest reasons for opposing the pitiful measure now brought forward, a measure which the government ought to have been