the bishops to attend, let Mr. Pope take his station at the avenue of the House of Lords, and as the lawn-sleeved successors of the apostles descend from their gilded chariots to the assemblage of the great, and the powerful, and the princely of the land, let his voice issue from the vaults of Westminster, and let him exclaim as they go by-" Are yo the priests of him who said that his kingdom was not of this world?"

I have, I fear, pursued this topic too far, and intermingled too much levity with subjects of solemn and awful consideration; but I own I cannot help regarding Mr. Pope and his fellow-labourers in the new reformation with a feeling of combined censure and derision. It shocks every notion of religion and of common sense, that these scatterers of the word of God should howl damnation in our ears, because we believe somewhat more largely and steadfastly than they do, while the opulence of the Established Church, for which, at all events, there is less authority than for transubstantiation, passes not only without censure, but without comment! In any observations which I have made on the clergy of the Established Church, I have not referred to them as a body, out rather alluded to individual cases; and I am free tɔ conresë, that recently the Frotestant priesthood have undergone, in conduct and morals, a salutary amelioration. On them I do not mean to cast any refiection; but I do insist, that the vast wealth possessed by individuals is a crying grievance, and repugnant to every conception which we can form, from the precepts of its Divine Author, of the Christian religion. I therefore do most strenuously blame Mr. Pope and his associates, for their invectives against the Catholic priesthood and the creed of the majority of the people, when the riches of the Establishment, which are so unequally and disproportionately distributed, demand so much retrenchment in their extent, and so much modification in their allotment. A wealthy priesthood, whether Catholic or Protestant, is a glaring and hideous anomaly; yet when did we ever hear Mr. Pope or Captain Gordon-(that Scotch sower of dissension, who scatters the thistle seed of controversy wherever he goes) or when did we hear Mathias or any one of them, deliver a single sentence in condemnation of the luxurious endowment of the Established Church? And who can doubt that it is utterly anti-Christian, and repugnant to the whole tenor and spirit of the system of creed and conduct which is inculcated in the New Testament? I protest it is almost enough to drive men into utter infidelity, to hear churchmen talk from their pulpits of meekness, poverty, self-denial, the contempt of riches, the emembrance of death, and the worthlessness of life, while they are themselves wallowing in the enjoyments of unbounded affluence, and engaged in the ardent and unremitting pursuit of the pleasures, the romps, and the vanities of the world. What a mockery it is to tell us that the church is a state engine. Gracious heaven! Is the cross or which our Redeemer died to be employed as a prop to sustain the leaning fabric of government! They first put the Scriptures into our hands they bid us read them over, and imbue our minds and impress our hearts with their tenets, and then, they have the audacity (for is it not the height and top of presumption?) to tell us in the very teeth of

every text in the New Testament, that the pontiffs of this poor and humble religion are to be invested with political authority, and to stand upon a level with princes and nobles, and are to have their five, their ten, their twenty thousands a-year-that the inferior clergy are in a regular gradation to be maintained at a corresponding cost-that the highest departments in the hierarchy and the priesthood are to be filled up by the sons of peers and boroughmongers, and that the whole business of religion is to be made subservient to the end of legislation, and even of court intrigue-that we should be told all this, and to make the matter worse, and more insulting to common decency and to common sense, that we should be told it by the very men who inform us that we are in damnable error, that we are misbelievers and idolaters, that our clergy are impostors, and that we are either infidels or foolsthat all this should be said by the very men who bid us search the Scriptures, and call themselves the servants and the delegates of a crucified God—this, I do honestly confess, provokes indignation; makes one stamp the foot, and cry out "monstrous!" at every word! The Church of Christ, it is said, should lift up its head in the midst of courts and palaces. When did Christ himself do so? But I am wrong-He did he stood in a court where he was hailed as king-he was clothed in purple-he held the emblem of empire in his hand, and he had a crown-but it was a diadem of thorns, which was planted in his bleeding temples, and pierced his bursting head-and it is in his name that.........But I have done-I would to heaven that the advocates for reading the Scriptures without note or comment would give a little reflection to all this. I would that they considered whether in the bosom of Protestantism itself, there are not abuses which will afford scope for their zeal, before they set up as knight-errants against Popery, and put us all at variance with each other, by dint of their wild and fanatical speculations. Let them leave the people and their religion alone, and no longer molest us with the absurd jabber and the unintelligible jargon of their fantastical theology; and if they are still determined to persevere in their oratorical vocation, let them, in place of wandering through the country for the diffusion of acrimony and the dissemination of discord, endeavour to instruct the people in the great principles of morality; let them enforce the practical injunctions, rather than contend about the mysterious tenets of religion; let them inculcate habits of industry, and sobriety, and subordination; let them reconcile the higher and lower classes by habituating the rich to mercy, and the poor to patience and submission; let them bind us together in the bonds of Christian brotherhood and natural affiliation, and never let them forget the "tidings of great joy" with which the coming of Christ was told to shepherds abiding in the mountains, in which, while the glory of God was celebrated, the angelic messengers proclaimed as among the results of the event which they were sent to announce from heaven, the peace, the tranquillity, and the happiness of mankind.

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THE FORTY-SHILLING FREEHOLDERS.

SPEECH ON THE FORTY-SHILLING FREEHOLDERS, AT AN AGGREGATE MEETING, HELD ON THE 7TH SEPTEMBER, 1826.

THE principal object in calling this meeting, is to devise measures for the relief of the forty-shilling freeholders, and it is sufficient to state that object, in order to impress you with the importance of the occasion on which we are assembled. I rise at the very opening of the discussion, because I have been instrumental in summoning you together. Nothing excepting a conviction of its paramount necessity, would have induced me to exert myself for the purpose of procuring this meeting when so many of the persons who take an active share in our proceed. ings are absent from Dublin. But when the work of ruin and of oppression is going on-when the severest process of the law is in full and active operation-when from Waterford, from Louth, from Cavan, and from Westmeath, a call for succour is so earnestly made-when I feel that relief, in order to be effectual, must not only be prompt, but immediate; in one word, when the cries of the forty-shilling freeholders are in my ears, I cannot listen to any cold-hearted disquisitions upon the inexpediency of meeting at this particular season, nor do I require that the sun should be in any particular sign of the zodiac, in order to do an act of common humanity and justice. It is enough for me to know, that the high-minded peasants, who have bidden defiance to the " tyrants of their fields," are under the active infliction of calamity, to make me overlook every consideration of time and place-to dismiss all legal quibbles from my mind, and if I may so say, rush through every impediment to their relief. I cannot allow common humanity to be frustrated by a forensic disputation, and obvious justice to be delayed by legal sophistications. I will not take up an act of parliament, in order to determine whether it is safe to be honourable, and whether humanity is made a misdemeanour by the law. I will not ask, whether the application of the rent to the succour of the freeholders may be tortured into a violation of the statute, but I will inquire of my own heart, whether it would not be utterly base and abominable to have excited the forty-shilling freeholders into a revolt against their superiors, and then leave the wretches, whom we have brought into acts of desperate patriotism to the compassion of the landlords and of the winds. These, Sir, are my feelings, and I think that I may add, that there is not a man in the Catholic body who does not participate in them. There is, in truth, no difference of opinion, respecting the propriety of doing everything in our power for the relief of the freeholders, and the only question relates to the means through which assistance ought to be afforded. I trust that the series of resolutions which will be proposed to-day, and which I have taken very great care in framing, will meet the views of the mos: adverse to the application of the old Catholic rent. I am very sensible that disunion amongst ourselves is to be avoided, and if once we separate upon a single topic, it is not improbable that our differences might

excite a spirit of acrimony and contention, which would extena to all our discussions, and ultimately render us, as it did before, the scorn of our enemies, and objects of compassion to those who wish us well. An intimation has been sent from Waterford, that the old rent should remain untouched. It is somewhat remarkable that nearly at the same time a demand for £400 should have been made by Waterford, in answering which, the whole of the new rent has been exhausted. Yet, I am the first to acknowledge that the greatest respect ought to be attached to any expression of their wishes, which may come from the citizens of Waterford; and we should endeavour to accommodate ourselves as much as possible to their views. The resolutions have been drawn in that spirit. The first of them recommends, IN CASE OF NECESSITY, (but not otherwise) an application of the old rent. It distinctly limits the application to a contingency. I think, that from these observations, it is scarcely possible that any man should dissent. Let me put this plain question, in order to illustrate the propriety of the measures in contemplation: Suppose that the new rent should be inadequate to the effectual succour of the forty-shilling freeholders, and that we should be informed that a certain sum was necessary, in order to rescue them, in any particular district, from their landlords-will any man say that, rather than touch the old rent, we should abandon the freeholders? I am convinced that there is no man here with so bad a heart. If a deputation were to be sent from Monaghan to Dublin, and the delegates of the freeholders were to come forward and declare that a sum of £500 was requisite, and must be immediately advanced, what answer should be given to them? Should we say, that the old rent is inviolable; that it is the ark of our cause, and that no hand should be laid upon it? Should we answer, that the new rent was the only fund out of which an act of justice could be performed, and that the forty-shilling freeholders must wait until the public coffers shall be replenished? But, Sir, this is not mere hypothesis. There are actually in this assembly three priests from Monaghan, and two Presbyterians, who have been deputed to enforce the resolution which I propose. They will tell you, (I leave it to them who have had the ocular proof) how much calamity has been, and is still being inflicted on their county. I shall venture to illustrate my views of our situation by a comparison. What would you think i. the governor of a besieged city, in which there was an old and abundant well, were to direct in a time of great exigency and drought, that the chief fountain should be sealed up, and that until a new well was conplete, none of the soldiers should be allowed to drink? If the soldiers were to come hot from the thickest fire of the enemy, and exhausted by wounds and sufferings, what would you think of the governor who said, "Go draw from the new shaft which has been sunk for water?" The soldiers might justly reply, "There is no water in it yet, and while it is sinking we shall die of thirst. Do, pray, good governor, give us a drop from the old fountain; enough only to save us from immediate deathit is all we require." Have I in this illustration presented a very unfair similitude. and are there not some amongst us who give a reply to the forty-shilling freeholders of a very analogous kind? We tell them to

resort to the new rent and to wait until it shall be collected. In the interval, their cattle are driven, they are ejected by civil bill, they are expelled from their houses, and they are reduced to starvation-what then is the proposition which I make? Dig the new well, make every effort to render it abundant, deep and full ; don't unseal the old fountain as long as there is a drop in the new source. But if the latter is exhausted, or if there be any delay in the rising of the water, then open the old fountain, and give out an adequate supply. But let me abandon the lan. guage of parable, and in a case which hardly requires any enforcement, refrain from resorting to these elaborate arguments in order to satisfy your reason, or to awaken a just sense of duty in your minds. There is, however, one objection to the application of the old rent, which as it has (to my surprise I confess) made an impression on some good-meaning persons, deserves to be encountered. It is said that an aggregate meeting has no power to allocate the old rent to any such purpose. When people are anxious to avoid doing any particular thing, they are often a little too astute in devising reasons to justify their conduct. If no part of the old rent can be voted away, in order to assist the forty-shilling freeholders, how has it happened that so much of it has been disposed of upon other occacions, for other and very distinct purposes? How does it happen that when salaries are to be given to public officers-when large sums are to be paid for newspaper advertisements, and other expenses of a similar nature are to be defrayed, no objection is made to the plenitude of power vested in an aggregate meeting. But when an acts which wisdom and honour concur in recommending, is to be performed, the authority of an aggregate meeting is, for the first time, disputed-and we are told that for all other purposes such an assembly is omnipotent, but that the relief of the freeholders is an excepted case. Áre not meetings of this description habitually designated as "the assemblies of the Catholics of Ireland;" and have they not uniformly exercised the powers which that designation would imply? The truth is, that there cannot be any other organ of the national sentiment employed but an assembly of this nature, and it would be wholly impossible to carry on the public business, unless a meeting, which every individual is at liberty to attend, could act on behalf of the whole of Ireland. Do not the petitions of the Catholics emanate from aggregate meetings-and are not resolutions constantly passed at these assemblies, in which the same national authority is assumed? And what is to be done? Are the counties to be called together? What, in the mean time, is to become of the forty-shilling freeholders? I shall ask another question, which may be equally well applied to the suggestion that they should be relieved out of the new rent. What is to befal them if a deficiency should take place? Another argument has been urged which is refuted by fact. It is said that the collection of the new rent will be impeded by the application of the old. The answer which I shall give to that suggestion appears to me to be triumphant. The county of Louth has passed a resolution in favour of the application of the old rent, if necessary. But I hold in my hand a series of resolutions, passed on the 6th of this month, at a meeting in which Sir Edward Bellew was in the