But, whatever may be his intentions, one principle of reasoning, from which you may argue as from any axiom in Euclid, is, that England and Ireland begin to be better known to each other than, from various circumstances, they have been hitherto. The factions of Catholic and Protestant, which shallow Politicians supposed to have been the chief, if not the only cause of civil perturbation heretofore, are now known to be only secondary to other objects, and of a tendency very different from that of maintaining Religious opinions.

The ambitious Spirit also, which betrays itself amongst us, whenever an Episcopal Vacancy occurs; the Spirit of Ecclesiastical Dominion, which broods at Maynooth over the exclusive patronage of 5 millions of people, styling that Spiritual Independence, which is in fact an uncontrouled temporal Patronage of £200,000 per annum; and a determination formed at Maynooth, to resist every Lay Presentation to Catholic Livings in Ireland, have provoked minute inquiries into the internal Government of our Church; and many circumstances relat

ing to marriages, dispensations, excommunications, and Parish dues, begin to be weighed in the scales of Politicians, which, if we had been more conciliatory in our manners, might have passed away unnoticed, either lost in apparent insignificance, or perhaps unregarded by that species of apathy which ensues, when the disputes of Religionists subside in settled hatred to each other, and the Disputants, disgusted by contests of malignity, turn away indignant from every fact, that might lead to more acrimony, or compel them to further investigation.

II. You will easily believe that facts, so disgraceful to our Clergy, as those which mark the Canvass for the Diocese of Tuam, are soon reported, and speedily disseminated throughout England; and that too, with a peculiar degree of sarcastic malice, which is the more to be lamented, because it has the dangerous effect of enfeebling the manly energies of our people, diverting them from the common enemy to mutual aggression, degrading us even in our own estimation, and rendering us objects of suspiçion abroad, in proportion as we are divided in

our Councils, and idly factious or turbulently discontented at home.

I care not which of the rivals has given most scandal. The conduct of all, so jealous, so envious of each other, and their private rancor exerted in public recrimination, disqualify them, until they return to more Christian sentiments, from performing the duties of a Ministry which they have profaned by worldly passions, and disgraced by uproar. The Sanctuary of the Meek and the Merciful, which has been invaded by ambition, and polluted by strife, must be sanctified by reconciliation and humility.

If, instead of deriving happiness from the peace, and prosperity, and good morals of our people, and of our Church, under the mild influence of a Constitution so ballanced, that neither the Ins nor the Outs can raise a Religious cry, without provoking the indignation of England, and incurring the danger of impeachment, we will act upon those very principles of turbulence, which we condemn in our enemies; if, feeling our own insignificance in

the great mass of population which surrounds us, we will endeavour to bring ourselves into notice by fury, or to gain influence by ferocity, it will then become the duty of the Civil Magistrate to take care, that the peace of the Community may not be disturbed, " ne quid detrimenti Respublica capiat," to arrest the progress of faction, and to make us feel, that the only respect, to which we can lay claim, must arise from the awe of our cirtue, and not from the dread of our brutality.

III. I am sorry to be compelled by these recent usactions, and by many others which have occurred within these last three or four years, even at public trials at Bar, to acknowledge, in cool dispassionate argument, that a Reformation is indispensably necessary in the internal discipline and oeconomy of the Irish Church; for these facts clearly demonstrate, that an Anti-christian Spirit of worldly pride, and temporal dominion, has corrupted the ancient humility, the ingenuous candour, and the simplicity of our Ecclesiastical manners; and that conscientious Catholics have more just cause

to be alarmed for the total extinction of the Sanctity of the Island of Saints, than to fear those salutary restraints of Legal responsibility, avowedly consistent with their faith, which sober Anti-fanatical Statesmen endeavour, in pity to the Irish people, to interpose, as an Ægis of defence, between their liberties and the usurpations of that uncontrouled Maynooth Imperium in Imperio, which is insidiously styled the Independent Hierarchy of the Irish Church.

V. I shall deliver the doctrines of the Catholic Church, on the subject of Spiritual independence, and Divine Right, with all that respect for the Episcopal order, to which that order is justly intitled.

I would die for the genuine articles of the Catholic faith, as many of our Ancestors have, who are now, I trust, enjoying the glory of conscientious attachment to Revelation. But I will not be imposed upon by an insidious clamour, the object of which is to gild the pill of Ecclesiastical domination, by giving it the colour of Divine Right, and to consecrate by a sacred name one of the most ungenerous usurpations, and one of the most novel, against the