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gorgeous superfluities is impossible. The only chance of preserving whatever there is of any value in the church, infinitesimal as it may be, is the speedy application of a bold process of reform. In timetake down in time the splendid pinnacles which the right honorable baronet mistakes for the "pillars" of the church; take down the golden dome, which has become too ponderous and has begun to totter; take down that gorgeous mass which does not belong to the Christian order, if you would serve the edifice, which it endangers far more than it adorns :-in the first political concussion, it will not only fall, but overwhelm the altar in its ruins.

The proposition which I mean briefly to assume in this debate is as simple as it is bold. Instead of entering into half-forensic and demischolastic disquisitions upon the nature of church property, I frankly and fearlessly tell you, that with the power which Catholic Ireland has acquired, and is rapidly acquiring, your sacredotal predominance is incompatible. Have you observed the development of Catholic Ireland? It is the fashion to say that the property of Ireland is al

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most exclusively Protestant, and I acknowledge that, when you revert to the military spoliations inflicted on us by your ancestors, you should arrive at the conclusion that you have left us bare. It was a biting sarcasm of him who said that the history of Ireland was a continuation of "Rapin " [rapine]. But while I admit that the fee-simple of Ireland is in a great measure Cromwellian, I asseverate that the mass of property to which political influence is attached is in the hands of the Catholic middle classes. The Reform Bill has been attended in Ireland with one most important result, which has not been the subject of as much attention as it deserves. Before that event the close boroughs of Ireland were in the hands of a few Protestant nominators, who deputed their representatives, the guardians of ecclesiastical opulence, to this house; a large transfer of power in this essential particular has taken place: it is now vested in the Roman Catholic inhabitants of the towns of Ireland which send members here. the Irish counties too a great preponderance of Catholic influence will

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be found, and it may be stated, without dread of contradiction, that the very great majority of the representatives of Ireland are returned by that community which not very long since was considered to be destitute of parliamentary influence. It is worth your while to look a little further into the circumstances which ought to convince you that every day the Church of Ireland-that structure of ascendancy which cannot long survive its parent-is becoming more and more enfeebled, and losing the sustainment on which it formerly relied. The greater the advances of Ireland in prosperity, the greater the expansion of trade, and the improvement in agriculture; the more Ireland sells and buys, the more ships enter her harbors; the greater the wealth the earth throws up from her bosom, the greater must be the progress of the people, as contra-distinguished from the aristocracy of Ireland, and the more formidable the array of those millions by whom the abatement of the great anomaly is required. Note an incident to the state of Ireland, which may at first view escape your notice. A small sect once enjoyed a monopoly of the patronage of the

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crown-Protestantism supplied the channel which beyond the royal bounty, issuing from the Castle, was never permitted to flow:-but now, under a government by which the principle of emancipation is carried out, an indiscriminate participation takes place in the dignities and in the emoluments connected with the chief departments of the State. In the year 1812 the Catholics of Ireland were denonnced as "miscreants" by a Protestant Attorney-General for Ireland, and one of the "miscreants" is now Attorney-General for Ireland.

If the physical aspect of Ireland has undergone a great change, a still more conspicuous moral alteration has taken place. Not only has cultivation made its way into the morass, but the mind of Ireland has been reclaimed. With the education of the people the permanence of unnatural and anti-national institutions is irreconcilable. But if education has done much, agitation, the apprenticeship to liberty, has done more; although in your judgment it may have been productive of many mischiefs, they are outweighed by the preponderant and

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countervailing good. Public opinion and public feeling have been created in Ireland. Men of all classes have been instructed in the principles on which the rights of nations depend. The humblest peasant, amidst destitution the most abject, has learned to respect him. self. I remember when if you struck him he cowered beneath the blow; but now lift up your hand, the spirit of insulted manhood will start up in a bosom covered with rags, his Celtic blood will boil, as yours would do, and he will feel, and he will act, as if he had been born in this noble land of yours, where the person of every citizen is sacred from affronts, and from his birth he had breathed the moral atmosphere which Britons are accustomed to inhale. Englishmen, we are too like you to give you leave to do us wrong, and, in the name of millions of my countrymen, assimilated to yourselves, I demand the reduction of a great abuse-the retrenchment of a monstrous sinecure-or, in other words, I demand justice at your hands.

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