APOLOO Y FOR THE BELFAST ADDRK88. 503 



to Trinity and the Queen's Colleges, the memorialists add 

 this darkest stroke of all: "They will, in the solitude of 

 their own homes, unaided by any guiding advice, devour 

 the works of Haeckel, Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, and 

 Lyell; works innocuous if studied under a professor who 

 would point out the difference between established facts 

 and erroneous inferences, but which are calculated to sap 

 the faith of a solitary student, deprived of a discriminating 

 judgment to which he could refer for a solution of his 

 difficulties/' 



In the light of the knowledge given by this courageous 

 memorial, and of similar knowledge otherwise derived, the 

 recent Catholic manifesto did not at all strike me as a 

 chuckle over the mistake of a maladroit adversary, but 

 rather as an evidence of profound uneasiness on the part of 

 the cardinal, the archbishops, and the bishops who signed 

 it. They acted toward the Student's Memorial, however, 

 with their accustomed practical wisdom. As one conces- 

 sion to the spirit which it embodied, the Catholic Univer- 

 sity at Kensington was brought forth, apparently as the 

 effect of spontaneous inward force, and not of outward 

 pressure becoming too formidable to be successfully 

 opposed. 



The memorialists point with bitterness to the fact, that 

 "the name of no Irish Catholic is known in connection with 

 the physical and natural sciences." But this, they ought 

 to know, is the complaint of free and cultivated minds 

 wherever a priesthood exercises dominant power. Pre- 

 cisely the same complaint has been made with respect to 

 the Catholics of Germany. The great national literature 

 and the scientific achievements of that country, in modern 

 times, are almost wholly the work of Protestants. A van- 

 ishingly small fraction of it only is derived from members 

 of the Roman Church, although the number of these in 

 Germany is at least as great as that of the Protestants. 

 " The question arises," says a writer in an able German 

 periodical, " what is the cause of a phenomenon so humil- 

 iating to the Catholics? It cannot be referred to want of 

 natural endowment due to climate (for the Protestants of 

 southern Germany have contributed powerfully to the 

 creations of the German intellect), but purely to outward 

 circumstances. And these are readily discovered in the 

 pressure exercised for centuries by the Jesuitical system, 



