1827.] Irish Polemics. '245 



were enlightened, liberal, and practicable men : but the leaven of fanaticism 

 still works. The principle of forcing the Bible is still acknowledged in 

 Parliament ; and the consequence is, that discord still prevails, while the 

 business of education is deplorably impeded. The commission is now fast 

 hastening to the close of its third year ; and it may serve to illustrate the 

 working of a divided cabinet, and the spirit of faction and intrigue, which, 

 prevailing in that cabinet, is propagated throughout all Ireland to remark, 

 that not all Lord Wellesley's power and influence can induce the esta- 

 blished clergy to abate one iota of their fanatical pretension of interfering 

 with the religion of their opponents. The Catholic bishops have offered 

 large concessions : they have offered to permit certain extracts from the 

 Douai Bible to be used in the classes ; and Mr. Blake, it is said, has even 

 taken the pains to draw up a work for this purpose, with a view to meet the 

 wishes of both parties. But the orthodox are inflexible ; and the commis- 

 sion seem as far from the termination of their labours as ever. While the 

 established clergy, with the nominee of the Attorney-General at their 

 head, are thus defying authority, and manufacturing discontent and dis- 

 loyalty, by wholesale, with the public money, the sectarians have not 

 been idle, either in Ireland or at home. The English missionary societies, 

 acting, it is affirmed, under the protection of the same noble lord who has 

 encouraged the biblicals of the church, have been loud and vehement of 

 their abuse of the Catholic religion, in order to increase the subscriptions of 

 the faithful, by the portraiture of the forlorn condition of those whom they 

 have undertaken to convert. From vituperation to scandal, and from 

 scandal to calumny, are scarcely a step. Such vituperation, if founded on 

 truth, is offensive, and more calculated to rivet the chain, than to loosen 

 the allegiance of the Catholics to their clergy ; but, when built upon ex- 

 parte stories, and upon direct and palpable misrepresentations, its effect 

 upon the population can be better imagined than Described. Not, how- 

 ever, contented with this distant velitation, missionaries, at least as remark- 

 able for their want of discretion as for the purity of their designs, have 

 more than once crossed the sea, to engage hand to hand with the priests 

 of Dagon. Challenges passed, de part et decilitre debating shops were 

 opened in the midst of the Catholic population, to try the faith in which 

 the people had been educated and the walls of the thickly-crowded 

 assemblies rang with 



, " Disco urs pieux, violens, emphatique?, 



Assaisonn d'injures scholastiques ; 

 Partout Tmjure est style de divots." 



To say that these hot-headed fools were not stoned on the spot, is to 

 declare explicitly the moderation and forbearance of an unlettered and pro- 

 voked populace, and the virtue and patriotism of a priesthood, who, by a 

 word or a look, might have ensured for themselves an ample vengeance 

 could they but have been brought to place at issue the lives and the few 

 remaining liberties of their miserable flocks. These efforts of the mission- 

 aries have been zealously seconded by domestic associations, which have 

 given occasion to an episode that deserves mention. Upon taking the 

 Held in any district, a requisition from the friends of biblicism is ostenta- 

 tiously advertised ; and a meeting is convened in the very enemy's camp, 

 for the purpose of discussing the demerits of Catholicism, and devising 

 means for conversion. As general principles can only be illustrated by 

 particular examples, stories are eagerly sought for, credulously received, 



