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HERE is a question anxiously debated by all classes of Irishmen who are educated enough to consider it. The answers given are so contradictory, that it is worth while to set them out clearly and show the reasons on which each of them is based.

The Protestant answer is quite unhesitating. Home Rule will increase enormously the present influence of the Romish priesthood, which is already too strong. When they have a Parliament consisting mainly of local Roman Catholics, they will not regard the interests of the Protestant minority. They will succeed in their great object-the control of higher, as well as of primary, education. They will discourage and even suppress any free expression of thought in history or philosophy. In all elections to local professional posts no Protestant will have a reason

VOL, CXCII.—NO. MCLXII.

able chance of election with a Roman Catholic body of electors. Hence the most intelligent and competent young Irish Protestants will leave the country. Possibly the emigration of the poorest and most ignorant peasants from the South and West may be stayed; a new and far more fatal emigration will be promoted of the better classes (in the strictest sense) from the more civilised districts, and our wretched country will relapse into a condition somewhat like that from which Italy and Spain are with great difficulty emerging. Home Rule will therefore deal a deadly blow to the intellect, the commerce, the general progress of the country. Even under the present system it is almost impossible to find a jury to convict a Roman Catholic priest, on the clearest evidence, of any misdemeanour. What will it be when the whole

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government of the country is controlled by their influence? Such in brief is the answer which the staunch Irish Protestant makes to this vital question.

Let us now turn to the Roman Catholic answer. But in doing so, we must set aside (1) the persons mainly incriminated-the priests, who do not for one moment deny that their Church should be supreme in faith and morals, and who are perfectly aware of the stupid blunder of politicians, who propose to sever faith and morals from politics and the other affairs of human life. Of course there is no dividing line, and if there were, who but the Pope of Rome could have any authority to draw it? (2) We must also exclude from the discussion the mass of ignorant poor, who live in dread of the anger of the Church, and would not dare to discuss calmly any limitation of her power.

We here accordingly confine ourselves to the answer given us by the small but important body of the Roman Catholic laity who are educated, and by the still smaller but equally important body—indeed it can hardly be called a body-of ecclesiastics who are not enslaved by their system.

These men tell us freely in private for as yet they dare not speak out in public-that the one chance of shaking off the tyranny of the priesthood is to establish Home Rule. For this will remove the protecting ægis of the English

Government, which has for three generations past been seeking to govern Ireland-or rather to keep it quiet-by securing the co-operation of the Romish clergy. It is for this purpose that religious houses are allowed to absorb vast sums of public money, and are protected from investigation and criticism. They are not taxed, as being charitable bodies, and any attempt to inspect their houses has been resisted by them or foiled by the Government. They have acquired immense property in Ireland, and have built many great churches and monasteries; they have bought numerous seats of the old gentry, and turned them into convents; they "educate" a vast number of children, with large help from the State. Why on earth, then, should they desire Home Rule? For the one chance of breaking their power is this very change, of which the Protestant is so afraid. There is, in fact, no chance of escape from this tyranny except to put power into the hands of local bodies who will insist on the inspection of religious houses and the taxation of Church property where it is duly ascertained-in fact, in preventing the Church from absorbing the wealth of the country, as it had done before the Protestant Reformation. Let us take the example of Dublin. Any one who examines the bounds of the monasteries sequestrated by Henry VIII. will find that they owned most of Dublin

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map of Dublin, marking in black the sites recently acquired by the Church, the public would be amazed to find out how many fractions of the city are now in their hands. And they are acquiring more and more every year. Home Rule, therefore, need not be Rome Rule, but the only practical method of curtailing or checking it.

These are the two attitudes assumed by Protestant and Catholic critics, and and they believe themselves in such direct contradiction with their opponents that if either proposition is proved the other must necessarily be false. But even Logic (which they despise for want of understanding it) would tell them that in real life a great number of apparent contradictions are only contraries or subcontraries-that is to say, they may both be false or both be true. This is particularly the case when the element of time comes in, for many a new policy, which has apparently been successful, hides within it faults which presently not only neutralise the expected good, but supplant it with evil consequences. The answer to the original question is therefore not so easy; it is not "either A is B or not B" -yes or no. The conclusion to which I have come is that both propositions are likely to be true, but in different senses and at different times. I invite the reader to follow my argument, which is purely historical

and quite free (I trust) from the prejudices of creed and party.

The first manifest result of a Home Rule Parliament will be that the Roman Catholic majority will assert itself, and that for all appointments and emoluments in the gift of the majority the Roman Catholic candidate will have the preference. This need only mean that patrons will prefer voting for their friends and relations, a very natural thing to do, and need not imply any hostility or injustice in the minds of the electors towards Protestant candidates.

And if any complaint be made it will be answered by the argument I have heard a hundred times. "You had your chances for the last 300 years. All that time Protestants got everything. It is our turn now. It is only the 'redressing the balance.' If, as you say, we now appoint Catholics who are not competent to places of emolument, how many such places did not Protestants obtain long ago? Surely turn about is only fair play." To this argument, which never suggests the notion of intolerance or oppression on the part of the majority, the practical reply will be that able and energetic young Protestants (as has been already stated) will emigrate. I venture to quote my own case. Being no party man, and watching the signs of the times, I foresaw, as any impartial observer could foresee, the ruin of the Irish landlords, the decay of their Church, and the con

sequent ascendancy of Roman Catholic interests. I spoke out about it long ago, to the great indignation of my own class, and of their leader, Lord Randolph Churchill. But they brought no sound argument against me, and I was so persuaded of the correctness of my forecast that I encouraged my sons to settle elsewhere than in Ireland. The Irish landlords now know, by bitter experience, that my words were true. The Irish Protestant clergy and their flocks, scattered through the South and West, and indeed the centre, of Ireland also, know that almost every where their congregations are diminishing, and that their real danger is not oppression from without, but atrophy from within.

I hold then that by a natural, quiet process, without any persecution whatever, Home Home Rule will become Rome Rule, and that the greatest mischief which turbulent Romish priests can do to their own cause is to accentuate and proclaim their increasing power by meddling with the civil life, or by interfering with the civil rights of the remaining Protestants. So likewise the Irish Legislature, if it have any wisdom, will take care to guard existing Protestant rights, and proclaim its high impartiality, if it desires to let the great social forces work their quiet way, and the mere natural preference of electors for their own creed to be the leaven which will leaven the whole lump.

What will be the general result on the future condition

of Ireland? The outlook to a historian is gloomy enough, though it may rejoice the heart of a Cardinal. Ireland must become much poorer in intellect and enterprise by the loss of its Protestant population, and will sink into the condition of Italy till 1848, and of Spain till this century, where a priesthood morally far inferior to the Irish Catholic clergy held tyrannical sway.

But I shall be told that this pessimism ignores the great force of national sentiment aroused by the pride of autonomy and of the enlightenment produced by education; that independent Ireland will wake up from its lethargy, and that the Roman Catholic peasantry, long down-trodden under the heel of Protestant ascendancy, will assert itself even against its own clergy, and develop new talents and accomplish new successes. devoutly hope that this forecast is true, and that some day it will be brilliantly verified, but I will now tell the reader why I think this resurrection will be long delayed, and also why I see no small danger if it be accomplished suddenly. But one thing of course is obvious: whenever it does take place, Home Rule will cease to be Rome Rule.

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When I was a boy I was always being treated to the prediction that with the spread of education the power of the Roman Catholic priest must decline. The National Board of Primary Education, originally intended to be purely

secular, was supposed to be the death-blow to their power. Yet fifty years have passed since then; there has been a system of secondary education and several universities added to the other. Yet not only is the priesthood stronger than ever, but they have managed to get such control of all the education of the Catholic youth of Ireland that there seems at present no sign, or hardly any sign, of the waning of their power. If the curious reader desires to know how such a strange phenomenon is to be explained, I can tell him. Nothing is easier than to assume the guise of educators and to make boys learn a great many subjects, and at the same time to teach them not to think. When the boy has to master many text - books, when he has to train and tax his memory to learn as much as he can off by heart, it is quite easy to keep him from thinking, and even persuade him that thinking about things is mere mischievous waste of time. Above all, why should he waste it thinking about religion. That has been given to him ready-made, handed down from his ancestors, supported by his teachers. Hence he grows up in exactly the same religious condition as his fathers. He may perhaps neglect the practice of his creed more than they did, but its dogmas are there, and these he does not question.

What are these dogmas? I will only mention those in which the power of the priest

resides. First, he performs, by virtue of his ordination, the miracle of Transubstantiation every Sunday and holy day. To use the quaint but quite devout phrase I have often heard: "He holds his God in his hands every week." Secondly, the belief in future punishment-eternal and terrific torture in hell-is kept alive by tracts like Hell opened to Believers, by Father Furniss, adorned with amazing woodcuts; and these tracts, which can be bought for 2d., are widely spread among the poor and the ignorant. Hence the power of the priest at the deathbed. The viaticum of the Church is regarded as a sort of passport to the next world, and the refusal of the priest to give the sanction and help of the Church to the dying man is a calamity not only to him, but to all those that love him and are gathered about his bedside.

So long as these dogmas are not questioned the power of the priest must remain unshaken, for he is endowed with supernatural powers, and hence, among the simple and religious, his person is sacrosanct and his judgment infallible. The reader will perhaps exclaim that I am putting the Catholic priest on a level with the medicine-man of savages. I do nothing of the kind, for the daily influence of the priest in promoting morality, and even piety, is often very great. He generally dissuades from crime and promotes virtue in his flock; but the secret of his strength is not there-it is in his miraculous

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