of the whole Irish people, when I avow that I do not desire the perpetuation of the chief impediment that stands in its way, and thus obstructs a consummation which every lover of his country naist mest devoutly wish. THE NEW REFORMATION SPEECH ON THE NEW REFORMATION, SPOKEN AT AN AGGREGATE MEETING. MR. SHEIL said, -Peel is out-Bathurst is out-Westmorland is outCoulburn (but he is not worth mention) is out-Wellington, the bad Irishman, (he was once a page in the castle, and acquired a habit of thinking as trailing as a Lady Lieutenant's gown) is out-and, thanks be to Gud, the hoary champion of every abuse-the venerable supporter of corruption in all its forms-the pious antagonist of every generous sentiment the virtuous opponent of every liberal amelioration-the immaculate senator, who wept over the ruins of Grampound; the incorruptible judge, who declared the Princess of Wales to be innocent, the Queen of England to be guilty-Eldon, the procrastinating, canting, griping, whining, weeping, ejaculating, protesting, money-getting, and money-keeping Eldon, is out. This, after all, is something. We have got rid of that candid gentleman, who, for an abridgement of the decalogue, would abridge Ireland of her liberties. We have got rid of the gaoler who presided over the captivity of Napoleon, and was so well qualified to design what Sir Hudson Lowe was so eminently calculated to execute. We have got rid of the authoritative soldier, who has proved himself as thankless to his sovereign as he had been ungrateful to his country, and who has been put to the right about left-and, better than ali-better than the presumption of Wellington, the narrowheartedness of Bathurst, the arrogance of Westmorland, the ostentatious manliness and elaborate honesty of Mr. Peel, we have got rid of John Lord Eldon's tears. The old hypocrite! His mind is like the face of the witch in Horace, “stercore fucata crocodili." Yet it were doing him wrong not to admit, that once in his life his sorrows were sincere, when, upon a recent occasion, looking the sympathetic Wetherell, and the renegade Sugden in the face, his lordship wept and blubbered a resignation. The whole empire rejoices at his fall, and by that fall much has been already gained by this country. Mr. Canning and his friends will not relinquish the determination, the moment they have acquired the power, to do us justice. I have no distrust of them; and with respect to the measure which we ought to adopt, I will say but one word, namely, that we ought not to harass and embarrass the men who Are still surrounded with difficulties, and who must be allowed time to mature their good intents towards our cause. They have been long convinced that emancipation is requisite to allay our animosities, and every day affords a new illustration of its necessity. In what part of . the world is religious rancour carried to such a point of detestation? Our evils were already sufficiently great, but a new and a worse calamity has lately arisen in the furious spirit of controversy which has recently broken out in Ireland. In prosecuting their favourite scheme of estab lishing a new reformation, (which Leslie Foster, in a paroxysm of unusual eloquence, informed the House of Commons that it would be as difficult to resist as to stop the falls of Niagara) the itinerant teachers of a new-fangled Christianity disturb the public peace, sow discord wherever they appear, and exasperate the people, by casting upon their priesthood the most contumelious invectives with which foul tongues can be supplied by still fouler and baser hearts. The new reformation! Though I should incur the anathema of the ex-secretary to Lord Lansdowne, and Dr. Bloomfield should indulge in a burlesque on the Apocalypse, I cannot but smile at this preposterous undertaking. In candour, however, I should say, that in one respect these symptoms of renovated Christianity correspond with the circumstances attending its original institution. It is among the poor, the naked, and the destitute that truth is making its way. It is among the dregs of the community that the premiums of arostacy are successfully applied. It is amidst the smoke of hovels that this new light has broken forth. It is in the exhalations of pig-styes that the holy spirit has appeared. There is no lack of Magdalens among the converts to this new reformation. This difference, however, exists between the institution of Christianity and the new reformation-neither Lord Farnham nor Lord Lorton bear any very great resemblance to the first delegates of Christ. For my part, I conceive that the real interests of religion are deeply affected by the scenes which are going on in this country, and I apprehend that if the Catholic creed be subverted, infidelity will rise out of its ruins. By teaching men to explore, you may disturb and weaken the deepest foundations of their faith. Witness the pleasant story told by Mr. Pope upon the adventures of a mouse with the eucharist. "Could mouse run away with the Godhead?" cries Mr. Pope. "Did the author of the sun, to whose throne the eye of Galileo could not approach, perish upon a cross?" This is the impious interrogatory of the infidel, which is analogous to the pious question of Mr. Pope; and he and his confederates, by familiarising the ignorant and unthinking to the contemplation of subjects which are above their reason, and do not fall within the cognizance of the imperfect intellect of man, lend their involuntary aid to those who have set up as apostles of annihilation, and with a passion for atheism, take a disastrous pride in withering the hopes, and blasting the moral and consolatory anticipations of mankind. I confess that I look on the recent controversy which has agitated this city as likely to be injurious to the cause of genuine religion; for it has made its most sacred mysteries a subject of theological chit-chat. I do not mean to cast the least blame upon Mr. Maguire, who was actually dragged into the combat by his opponent; on the contrary, I think that Mr. Maguire acquitted himself in a manner which reflects the greatest credit upon him; for, although hitherto unknown, and whouy unpractised in public speaking, he entered the lists with the great prize fighter in polemics without dismay, and deriving a genuine eloquence from the consciousness that he spoke the truth, evinced a decided superiority over his antagonist. He was never once betrayed inte anger-while his opponent, by his contumelious charges, indicated the jepth to which his pride had been wounded. He looked at him with the smile with which Calvin ordered Servetus to the flames. It is by the convulsive passions that agitated the evil spirit in the disguise of an angel, that Uriel discovered the enemy of mankind-and it may be Faid, in the language of Milton, of this champion of the Lew reformation, that While he spoke, each passion dimmed his face, For heavenly minds from such distempers foul What a contrast did the poor priest, the logician of the mountains, present to this modern apostle! With the flush of rural health upon his cheek-with the benevolent expression of honest good nature upon his face with all the evidence of sincerity impressed upon him—he replied with mildness to the charges brought against his truth and honour, and exhibited the true spirit of a Christian by holding forth a tender of amity, and begging that they should part in peace. It would be doing Mr. Pope an injustice not to say, that his good feelings got the better of his religious rancour, and he merged the animosities of the theologian in the honest emotions of the man. This was the only circumstance which could promote the cause of true religion in the whole of the six days' discussion. It was altogether a most fantastic scene. A wandering dealer in inspiration, a sort of rider to the great manufactories of religion in the metropolis, takes it into his head that he can put an end to the dispute which has agitated the world, by putting down a country priest to whom he gives a challenge. Mr. Maguire is forced into it two seconds are chosen.-Paulus Æmilius Singer, on whose head a tongue of fire seems to have descended, and to have left its traces behind, is selected by Mr. Pope, while the philosopher of Belfast, from the spirit of genuine piety by which he is distinguished, is nominated as bottleholder to St. Peter. The renowned commodore of the Floating Chapel, Admiral Oliver, is appointed chairman to the Protestants, while Mr. O'Connell, who was casually there, was much against his will compelled to take a joint command with the Admiral. Thus an honourable competition is established between the Navy and the Bar. God forbid that I should attempt to detail the various incidents of the theological encounter. I should not, however, omit to mention that I was greatly dified by the numerous attendance of the loyal portion of the bar, among whom were to be observed three eminent gentlemen, who had signed the Anti-Catholic petition under the influence of premature anticipations. They came to listen to Mr. Pope, in order to apply to their calamities the consolations of religion, and, indeed it was truly delighttui to see, when the orator expatiated on the spiritual dangers incidental to ones, how Mr. Sergeant Lefroy turned up the whites of his eyes ta heaven. But the person most deserving of Lote was Dr. Alagee, whe exhibited a strange alternation of feeling, for when a blow was made by Mr. Pope at "the church without a religion," the Doctor forgot that the gentleman beienged to "a religion without a church," while, when the priest knocked the mitre from the head of the Establishment, the Doctor exhibited no little uneasiness. "Had St. Paul ten thousand pounds a year?" said the priest. The Docter gave a start. "Had the teachers of the Gospel two millions of green acres in Palestine?"— The Doctor shifted his seat. "Show me an authority for the drawingroom and the levee?"-the Doctor bit his nails. "Show me a text for your equipages, and your banquets, and your chariots, and your pride, and your pomp, and your titles, and your tithes, and your cesses, and your church rates, and your fines, and all that system of grinding taxation, by which the sacerdotal power and splendour are preserved. Show The priest was ceeding in this strain of formidable expos tulation, when I turned to look at his Grace, and I found that the Arch (what shall I call him ?)--the Archbishop had disappeared. I wish that Mr. Pope would take up this strain of interrogation, and that instead of trying to convince Roman Catholic peasants to adopt the tenets, he would endeavour to persuade some Protestant bishops to follow the precepts of the Gospel. He ought to be tolerably well satisfied after his recent experiment, that he cannot obtain any very considerable renown by engaging in controversial contentions with our clergy. In order, therefore, that he may not be left destitute of occupation, I beg leave to point out to him another and a better path to fame, namely the glorious enterprise of teaching certain high-priests of the Estab lishment to adopt a more apostolic fashion of life; and if he feels that there is no ordinary difficulty in the undertaking, he should remember that his merit will be enhanced by the arduous obstacles which he will have to encounter. He has admirable qualifications for this enterprise, and should take care to apply them in the most effectual and impres sive manner. I beg leave to suggest to him the following exploit. Having ascertained on what day a bishop gives a dinner, let him procure a copy of Hudibras, and study with precision the exact attire of a genuine teacher of the word. I would not, however, have his hair too closely cropped, after the manner of the Roundheads, it were better that it should stream loosely, wildly, and prophetically, as a type of his mind and his opinions. If he were to attend the theatre when Mr. Liston performs that part of Mawworm, it might assist his fancy, though, I must confess, that nature has done so much for him, that he hardly requires any extraneous aid in order to make him look the appropriate herald of the other world. When he shall have completely rigged himself out, and put on the ghastliest aspect of inspiration, let him go forth and ascend the steps of his lordship's palace, and having gained admission by a knock louder than a curate's tap, let him rush at once to the banquet room, and throwing open the doors, advance into the midst of the episcopal festivity. Let him march, with spectral strides, and when every eye shall have been fixed upon him, let him, with his deep and sepulchral voice, demand, whether it was after such a fashion that the apos tles dined-whether the silver and gold, the crimson tapestry, the Asiatic carpet, the blaze of splendour, the multifarious luxury, the costly wines, the din of revelry, and tumultuous joyance, are in accordance with the lessons of poverty and self-denial prescribed by the Scriptures; and shaking his phantom hand at my lord the bishop, let him ask, how, with his pampered paunch, his bloated cheek, his swimming and volup tuous eye, he would dare to appear before that God of whom he professed himself the minister? But let not Mr. Pope stop here. After he shall have uttered his denunciations, and turned the bishop pale, let him walk forth, and proceeding to the chambers where he hears the sound of the harp and the tabor, let him rush into the centre of the dance, and after he shall have cast his lurid eyes around, when the sound of the fiddle shall have died away—when the astonished musicians shall have stood aghast and mute-when the bishop's wife shall have got into hysterics, and the bishop's daughters shall have sought refuge in the arms of their partners then let this modern Isaiah exclaim" Woe unto the daughters of Zion, because they are haughty, and walk with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes, winking and mincing as they go; therefore the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments, and their cauls, and their round ties like the moon, the chains, and the bracelets, and the ruffles; the bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the head-bands, and the tablets and the earrings, the changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping-pins, the glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the veils; and it shall come to pass, that there shall be, instead of well-set hair, baldness, and instead of a stomacher, a girdle of sackcloth, and burning instead of beauty." It will be strange if Mr. Pope does not succeed in putting waltzing, and all other importations of German attitude down. But it is not to the interior of the pontifical palace that he should confine his efforts for a genuine reformation. Let him go forth into the public streets, and with all the intrepidity that becomes his heavenly mission, denounce the anti-Christian abuses that prevail everywhere around us. Let him stand at the door of Kildare-street club, for example, and inquire of the deans, and the archdeacons, and the rectors, whether the chambers of indigent, the dungeons of the captive, the death-beds of the sinful, would not be more appropriate places of ecclesiastical resort- let him, if he sees some wealthy and luxurious dignitary rolling in his carriage with his wife and daughters to the Castle, stop the driver, and inquire whether the way to heaven is not too narrow for a coach and four. And when he sees a certain arch-priest cantering through the streets, let him seize his horse by the bridle and cry out—“Good, my lord, it was not after this fashion that Christ entered into Jerusalem on the meek and humble animal with which patience and suffering are associated." But it is not my intention that Mr. Pope should limit his spiritual achievements to this country; and after he shall have acquired the plenitude of such provincial celebrity as Ireland can confer, let him set off for London, and on some night when the minister hall have written circular summonses to |