them to read renders it no longer a sealed book to them, and opens the way for admonitions on the duty and importance of perusing it for themselves. These we may-these every Christian ought to address to them; and amongst an educated population, we have no fear for the success of genuine Christianity, in these days of active exertion for its spread. When that character can be applied to Ireland; when all, or even the great majority, of its inhabitants can read the Bible if they will, the day is not far distant when the Catholic clergy will find themselves compelled to renounce the antichristian practice of forbidding its perusal to their flocks.

And here an important question arises, and must be met; namely, whether, in the event of anticipating such a period, or from any other cause, that clergy should refuse to further the education of their people, they should be permitted to oppose it? The author of the State of Ireland shall answer the inquiry for us:

"To the Catholic priesthood I would say, 'You profess to be ministers of light, not of darkness; you should advance learningSHALL not impede it; your tenets shall not be invaded, but your flocks SHALL be instructed. If you will not co-operate in a generous system of national education, expect no favour from the nation-you shall have none." [pp. 42, 43.]

They may, if they please, (for according to the laws and constitution of England they have a right to do it,) maintain that a piece of wafer is the real body of Christ, and eat it a thousand times over; they may worship saints, bow down to images, work miracles if they can; for all these are matters between God and their consciences. But they may not keep the people in ignorance; for ignorance is the nurse of crimes, irrespective of all religious opinions and observances highly injurious to the community, of which they are members; whose interests they are bound to promote, whose welfare they have no right to obstruct. It may be difficult, indeed, to hit upon any direct means of compelling them to the performance of their duty, but there are indirect ones, which would, we apprehend, be efficacious. Firmly and decidedly should the government and the legislature adhere to the recommendation just quoted, and make co-operation in the work of educating the populace of Ireland, a sine qua non of any amelioration in the present uncomfortable condition of her Roman Catholic hierarchy and priesthood. There exists, we believe, a very great difference of opinion

amongst them upon this important point; be it therefore the care of the executive on the spot, to encourage those who support the liberal, and publicly and privately to discou rage and discountenance those who adhere to the illiberal one. Speeches and letters of the Lord Lieutenant, and a gracious or a cool reception at the Castle, have their effect in Dublin and throughout the country, and that effect might easily be increased. The measures we have proposed are to operate upon the clergy; there is one admirably calculated to operate upon the people, whom you cannot force to be instructed, to which we would call the attention of the legislature and the public, by extracting the following passage from the State of Ireland.'

"I should even—not unhesitatingly-venture to propose, that those only should vote at elections who could write and read their own affidavits of registry. This principle is not novel in our constitution; our wise ancestors promoted learning by granting, even to criminals, the benefit of clergy. Would it not be as efficacious, and more just, to extend to a certain proficiency in letters, not pardon, but privilege; not impunity in crime, but advancement in political power? Is it not monstrous, in theory as well as practice, that the grossest ignorance should influence the choice of a legislator, as much as the most cultivated understanding—that the enlightened should be overborne in the highest exercise of rational liberty, by the rude and barbarous? Yet thus it is, and the primary assemblies of Ireland are swayed by brutal ignorance and profligate perjury. We have seen, in some counties, the majority of constituents driven, like cattle, to the hustings. We have seen them-unable even to speak English-attempt to poll in Irish. We know that these miserable creatures are weapons wielded by the gentry against each other at elections, and by demagogues against the gentry in rebellions. Is this to be borne? From such turbid and poisoned sources, can the stream be pure and salutary?" [pp. 41, 42.]

In this recommendation we most cordially agree; but we have no hesitation as to its justice or propriety, provided a system of national education be previously established, upon a broad and liberal basis, and that the exclusion of the unlettered from a franchise which they are manifestly unfit to exercise, should not commence until sufficient time has been given to adults to learn to read, as they easily may do; and beyond reading we see no reason for the disqualification to extend. Those who are taught to read will soon be anxious to learn to write, a more difficult operation, and less essential acquisition; whilst, with the modifications which

may

we propose, exclusion from the elective franchise will be the fault of the person excluded, and his fault alone. He be educated if he will; if he will not, he can have no right to complain of exclusion from the choice of legislators, which would be unjustly confined to the rich, the noble, or the powerful; whilst, when the means of instruction were gratuitously opened to all, it would be wisely and equitably taken from the ignorant. Gratuities to able and zealous teachers; provision for trifling rewards to diligent scholars, larger, perhaps, in both instances, to Catholics than Protestants, should it, upon consideration, be deemed wise to make any distinction, as we are not certain that it would be; the visitation of the public schools by the clergy and gentry in their neighbourhood, especial care being taken in the latter respect to avoid all grounds of irritation on religious differences; and the establishment of parochial libraries, are some of the minor encouragements of the great and necessary work of education in Ireland, at which we can only glance, without attempting to follow them into their details.

From these hints on the best and most practicable means of promoting the general education of the Irish Catholics, we turn, at the conclusion of our remarks on this important subject, to the necessity of at least preventing the priesthood of that communion from impeding a work which, as a body, they seem not disposed to further. From the statement of Mr. Steven, on which we can implicitly rely, we rejoice to learn, that in the schools of the Hibernian Society, nearly sixty thousand children and adults are at present educated; most of them being Catholics, frequently taught by Catholic teachers, and in many cases in Catholic chapels. Here, as in schools for all denominations should always be the case, though we are not prepared to say, that on a grand national system of education for Ireland such schools would be the best, the Bible is taught without note or comment; and because it is so, the vigorous opposition of the greater part of the Catholic clergy has been increasingly excited against them.

"In some counties," says our author, "it has been most outrageous. The enemies of education have, in one place, burned a very excellent school-house and a master's dwellinghouse, and afterwards proceeded cruelly to card the mas

This diabolical process is effected by driving a number of nails through a board, in imitation of a card. They strip the object of their fury, and drag this instrument of torture up and down the bare back, till the riba and backbone are bared. Mortification and death frequently follow.

ter, and in doing so, they broke two ribs on one side, and one on the other, so that his life was despaired of. In a multitude of instances, the whole artillery of the church, allowed in that country, has been opened on the offending parents who dared to exercise the inalienable right of disposing of their children as they pleased. Numbers have, notwithstanding, exercised this right, fearless of the consequences, and, in the face of threatenings the most appalling, have continued their children at the schools of the Society;others, alarmed and terrified, with grief have confessed that they must withdraw them." [pp. 36, 37.]

"In one place," he afterwards tells us, "the priest stands at the corner of the street, with a whip in his hand, to chastise the children belonging to his flock, whom he finds going to the Society's School. It is curious to see these dear creatures walking down with cautious steps towards the dreaded corner. A number thus are collected, and then a general burst takes place, and a race also between the priest and them. In this way, but few are caught. Where is the magistrate who can suffer such things? Were such a course to be followed by a Protestant minister, in case any of the children of his flock were going to a Catholic school, what an uproar would there be, and the whole country would presently ring with the illiberality of the proceeding. And there are not a few Protestants, who can quietly suffer the priest to take his course, who would join in the cry against the Protestant minister, were he to imitate him." [pp. 43, 44.]

These things should not-these things must not be. Decidedly opposed as we are to all attempts to force the children of Catholic parents to attend in Protestant schools, or in any school where they are compelled to read the Bible, whether they will or no, where they are willing to come, and the parents are willing to let them, the Catholic priests must not be permitted to prevent their attendance, by any other means than opening schools conducted on their own principles, in which, if the proposed plan of a national education be adopted, due care must be taken that the children who prefer attending them, are instructed in reality, and not merely in pretence. This Protestants neither can nor ought to prevent their doing; nor do we know how, consistently with the preservation of the rights of conscience inviolate, they can be prevented wielding against such of their flocks as prefer a Protestant Bible education to theirs, the spiritual thunders of the church; though we are satisfied, that education has already made sufficient progress in Ireland to lessen the terror of this

artillery. As that work advances, excommunications and anathemas will gradually lose their force. The moment, however, that any thing like a temporal punishment, or injury, is either attempted by itself, or follows as a necessary consequence from a spiritual excommunication, an offence cognizable by the laws has been committed, and one of which immediate cognizance ought to be taken. Magistrates cannot do this, without proper and legal informations before them. With such in either of the cases which we have cited, or in any of a similar nature, they would have declined to act upon them at their peril; and the Government would do wisely, as well as justly, in directing their prosecution at the public expense. Ireland has now an able and efficient attorney-general, and, we doubt not, but that on a proper representation of such a procedure, he would do his duty.

Ireland, we are rejoiced to find, from Mr. Steven's report of his recent visit to many of its districts, affords, at the present moment, in the midst of all its distresses and disturbances, the most encouraging prospects for the adoption of the plan which we strenuously recommend as the great means of her improvement---the system, without an immediate resort to whose principle, whatever becomes of its details, we have no hope of her salvation. "The growing desire of the Catholic parents for the education of their children, has compelled "the priests," he tells us, "to open schools in a way of self"defence. In these schools they can no longer (as formerly "they did in what are called schools) abstain to teach the chil

dren to read." Open therefore, we say, and encourage when opened, more Protestant schools, or rather more schools for all; and we shall have more Catholic ones in self-defence. In self-defence also, they must ultimately take, even though they should at first reject, the Government bounty, which we propose for the increase of these institutions. It will be evident to our readers, that, for reasons already assigned, we join not in this benevolent writer's well-meant, but he must permit us to add, somewhat intemperate assertion, that "every school in Ireland, in which the sacred scriptures are "not read daily, may be accounted a nuisance instead of a blessing, inasmuch as the probable good is overbalanced by the probable evil;" yet are we satisfied, that by pursuing the temperate and conciliatory plan which we recommend, instead of the compulsory or partial one, which must result from his principle-correct, we admit, in the abstract, but wholly inapplicable to the present state of Ire