'-Ml Irish Polemics. [MARCH, 



tion is levied on cither side, to watch the proceedings of the other. Tracts 

 are dropt on the highway, and Bihles are wrapped up in frieze cloaks and 

 ilannel petticoats. Every artifice of affected candour and liberality is 

 adopted, to seduce the peasants into disobedience to their church ; and 

 charity roams through the village, for the purpose (as the poor people them- 

 selves assert^ of " doing them out of their devotion." In some instances 

 it has been loudly proclaimed by the Catholics, that even threats have 

 been employed to force their children into the Bible schools; that rents 

 have been distrained, and indulgences have been withheld, in cases of 

 non-compliance with the unreasonable demand. The visits of the esta- 

 blished clergy, of the Protestant agent, or of the pious Lady Bountiful 

 of " the great house '*' to the poor, are closely followed by those of the 

 priest, who, like another Penelope, unravels the web they have wove, 

 comforting the weak-hearted, and encouraging the strong to resist this novel 

 species of persecution ; and it rarely happens that an enforced compliance is 

 continued beyond a few days. Ill-will and disputation are thus widely 

 disseminated. The Protestant, jealous for the honour of his Bible, bitterly 

 reproaches the Catholic for his neglect of the sacred volume : tho Catholic 

 angrily resents the infringement of his right of conscience ; and both, per- 

 haps, might assert of each other with equal reason, that " leur savoir ri 'est 

 qne beterie, et leur sapience rfest que mouffles, bdtardissant les bons 

 et nobles esprits et corrompant tottte jleur de jeunesseS'* It has been 

 made a matter of public charge against the Clancarthy family, by Mr. 

 Eneas Mac Donnell, in a speech delivered at Balinasloe, that they have 

 used their power as landlords in the unworthy mariner above noticed ; and 

 the charge has been met by a prosecution for libel ! The accusation may 

 be ill-grounded ; or, being true, the facts may be as methodistically correct, 

 as they are legally justifiable ; but the effects of such squabbles upon tho 

 minds of the Catholics, cannot but be the most galling and offensive. 

 The duty of reading the Scriptures is no matter for political discussion. 

 Protestants think the obligation binding, because they believe the Bible to 

 be the exclusive revelation of Heaven ; and Catholics as reasonably object 

 to the practice, because they believe in revelations from other sources. To 

 what end should they read, who are forbidden by their creed to interpret? 

 Which are in the right, I shall not take upon myself to assert ; but if we can- 

 not convince the Catholics, to force the book upon their children is a manifest 

 act of cruelty and oppression a persecution as violent and unjust as an 

 auto-da-fe, though not perhaps as execrable and inhuman. Nor is the 

 policy of tho attempt less aukward and inefficient. We all know the homely 

 proverb of trie horse and the water. If the Catholics who want gratuitous 

 instruction will not learn to read upon our terms, it is not very clear how 

 we can ever bring them to read the Bible ; but it is demonstrable, that, by 

 waving our Jfegulations, and teaching the Catholics to read in other books, 

 we shall at least give them a chance of stumbling upon the Bible, from 

 which those who cannot read are for ever precluded. It must be well 

 known to those who follow the proceedings in Parliament, that the use 

 which the Kildaie-street Society have made of the public money was tho 

 subject of severe animadversion ; and that a commission was appointed, 

 under the auspices of the liberal part of the cabinet, for the especial pur- 

 pose of remedying this abuse. This commission was fairly selected one 

 member of it even being, par extraordinaire, a Catholic and the majority 



* Rabelais. 



