248 Irish Polemics. [MARCH, 



Orange dinners in the north; for, though all have not imitated the candour 

 of Dr. Robinson, a provocation to bloodshed is the common spirit of all 

 their speeches. A rebellion, weakly plotted and hastily executed (with 

 whatever horrors it might be accompanied), would paralize the Catholic 

 body, and put off for half a century the possibility of emancipation. This, 

 in the eyes of faction, is a consummation devoutly to be wished ; and 

 though all do not look murder and plunder full in the face, and seek to 

 found the triumph of their party upon the smoking ruins of cities, and the 

 mangled remains of their fellow-citizens ; yet many, in the excitement of 

 the moment, are too apt to overlook these consequences. 



Thus every day is the breach between the two religions widening the 

 exaltation of the passions increasing ; while the bonds of society become 

 more and more relaxed; so that the whole political system of the country 

 is rapidly approaching to the constitution of a rope of sand. Reli- 

 gious feeling in a community is like vital force in the human body : in a 

 certain quantum it produces vigour and health while a trifling excess is 

 the cause of fever, delirium, and disorganization. To this excess the 

 alliance of church and state, with its concomitants privilege and exclusion 

 inevitably leads ; yet are we told that the Catholic question concerns 

 only a few briefless barristers and disappointed demagogues ! It concerns 

 every man, Catholic or Protestant, in Ireland, who prefers order to anarchy, 

 industry and wealth to idleness and starvation, religious peace to fanatical 

 excitement, and the British constitution to legalized despotism. Unless 

 something be speedily done to calm the passions, and to dilate the zeal of 

 all the religious parties of Ireland, scenes of tumult and disorder must 

 ensue; and the government qf the British Parliament, though not perma- 

 nently overturned, will at least be temporarily suspended. Here, indeed, 

 the church is in danger in urgent and imminent danger! While the 

 great question remains unsettled, it is idle to expect a subsidence of the 

 troubled waters, or to look for an abatement of local bigotry, jealousy, 

 and intrigue. At least, therefore, let folks be left to their own passions 

 and not hallooed on to aparchy and riot by strangers. , It is provoking to 

 find those in England, who are hostile to an amicable arrangement, the 

 most active in increasing the agitation of Ireland, by their indiscreet and 

 silly attempts at proselytism. It is by the slow but certain operation of 

 opinion that religious sects are created and overthrown. Time and cir- 

 cumstance in this are all powerful individual and corporate exertion, 

 nothing. Surely philanthropy and religion have either of them enough 

 to work upon at home, in the domestic misfortunes of England, without 

 wasting money in pouring oil on the flames of Irish discontent, under the 

 absurd and impracticable notion of " converting the benighted Papists." 



As Protestants, we cannot but feel that the conversion of the Irish pea- 

 santry is a consummation most devoutly to be wished ; and, for that very 

 reason, we the more deplore that the attempt should have been made in so 

 injudicious a way. That attempts at conversion, however undertaken, 

 should have some partial successes, must reasonably be expected. Accord- 

 ingly, " de part et d'autre," proselytes are from time to time made, which 

 the newspapers connected with the respective creeds egregiously exagge- 

 rate. In Cavan, more especially, where solid bank bills have been thrown 

 into the scale against airy speculative theology where the articles of reli- 

 gion have been swallowed between slices of beef sandwiches, and the bitter 

 pill of recantation washed down by draughts of brown stout some 

 transitory successes may with truth bo boasted. But while religion han 



