118 England and Europe, [ Fes. 
He will not forget the lesson wrought for his strength, by his weak pre- 
decessors. He will purify the cabinet, and the nation, already rejoicing, 
shall yet more rejoice, in the’ casualties that prepared the way for the 
supremacy of a great minister. 
Another memorable working of good out of evil, is still before us in 
full action. Six months ago the public mind seemed asleep to the most 
momentous question that can concern a people ; the question whether 
the free constitution and scriptural faith of England shall be laid at the 
mercy of the slaves of an Italian priest, and the haters of Protestantism ? 
Popery was making stealthy but rapid strides during this slumber. 
The indolent friends of the constitution felt themselves justified in their 
indolence, by the apparent neglect of the nation; the timid looked 
round, saw no help, and made a traffic of their timidity ; the knavish 
saw in the general somnolency, only a more secure season of providing 
for themselves, popery recruited her ranks from them all. 
_ Suddenly an individual made a speech at a public dinner, implying 
that the premier was a convert to the views of the papists. His speech 
was an error or a fiction, but its tidings were heard with dismay by 
every well-wisher to the empire. The exultation of popery followed it, 
with insolent triumph. But then followed the nobler results: the menace 
broke the sleep of Protestantism. Its supposed desertion by Govern- 
ment, roused it to the exertion of its own brave energies ; the premature 
menaces of popery invigorated its remembrance of the tender mercies 
of popish rebellion. It sent its summons through the land, it collected 
and combined, its speakers developed, in a course of masterly appeals to 
the common sense of the nation, the resources, the dignity, and the 
sacredness of the national cause. Its voice was heard in England, and 
echoed by the aroused and generous sympathy of our land of freemen. 
In Ireland, the Brunswick Clubs already number upwards of four hun- 
dred thousand individuals, the representatives of the property, learning, 
religion, and principle of the country ; a force that at once puts the 
nation in a state of security, leaves the mind of the minister at its ease, 
to pursue its course of manly wisdom ; and establishes the saving truth 
that Protestantism, if faithful to itself, can never fail. 
In England, the rights of our religion and freedom have since been, again 
and again, authenticated by the mightiest voice of her people. Myriads 
have already pledged themselves, by the most public and unquestionable 
declarations, to the resistance of all conspiracy against their faith and 
laws. The hypocrite and the sycophant, the rabble-leader, and the 
specious liberalist, have been turned into contempt: the summoning of the 
nation scon taught them the difference between a corrupted mob and 
the fearless and high-hearted multitudes of England. Kent, Cornwall, 
Devon, and a crowd of important districts, have already pronounced 
their will. The slightest attempt to carry the question now, would stir the 
land from north to south, and from east to west, into one grand move- 
ment ; and if, instead of exulting, as we do, in the vigour, we had to 
dread the weakness of government, we should find the noblest refuge in 
the colossal shadow of the uproused nation. 
Let one more instance be given. The feebleness of the Irish parlia- 
ment, in 1793, gave the franchise to the papist forty-shilling freeholders. 
Liberalism was the folly of the day ; and it proclaimed that then, for the 
first time, the Irish peasant was to be lifted into the rank of a human 
being ; that, with the power of voting, his moral condition must rise in 
. a 
