verts, have no dangerous zeal, and will seldom, in case of conflict, hesitate to support the temporal authority against the spiritual. They may think them very silly, from a mere point of honor, to adhere to an old and proscribed religion, wholly incompatible with the light and spirit of the modern world; but upon the whole they think them, though a fantastic, a very good sort of people, not much inferior to Protestants themselves, at least not at all more dangerous to the state. But their feelings are very different towards the bold, energetic, and uncompromising papist, who asserts, without any reticence or circumlocution, that the spiritual order is supreme in all things, and that princes as well as subjects are bound to obey the law of God, and, if Catholics, are bound to obey that law as interpreted by the Roman Catholic Church, especially as interpreted by the pope, her supreme pastor. Catholics of this stamp they respect, indeed, but dread, because they are evidently in earnest, and present Catholicity in the sense in which it is the precise contradictory of the essential principle of Protestantism.

The pretence of the reviewer, that Catholics have violated the conditions on which emancipation was conceded, is unfounded. It is a mere pretext. The real thing that he wishes to oppose is this free, fearless, hearty, and vigorous Catholicity; for he knows that this is a Catholicity that does and will march from victory to victory, and that whereever it plants its foot Protestantism must disappear. The real aim of the Quarterly is to weaken the power of Catholies, by sowing divisions in their ranks, and frightening them out of this high-toned papal Catholicity. What it means to tell us is, that it was the low-toned Gallicanism which the relief bill emancipated, not the high and uncompromising ultramontanism in which English and Irish Catholics now glory, and therefore that in exchanging the former for the latter they have broken their engagements. He will not succeed. There are, no doubt, in England and Ireland, as well as in this country, some timid Catholics who retain their old prejudices, and who would feel themselves insulted if called papists. These may think such Catholics as Cardinal Wiseman and the archbishop of Dublin, with their true Roman spirit, are pushing matters too fast and too far; but thongh at times seemingly half prepared to give up Peter for Cæsar, they are after all Catholics, and will follow those whom they would never have the pluck to lead. They may

grumble a little, but they will remain united with their brethren. As for frightening the others back into the Catholicity of the Gallican school, that is simply out of the question. They love, as well as obey, Rome. They know she is the centre of unity, and that the closer their union with her, and the deeper and more unreserved their submission to the Holy Father, the fresher, the more vigorous, and the more inexhaustible their Catholic life. They are and will be Roman Catholics. Both the English and Irish hierarchies are strongly attached to Rome, and will remain so, both from principle and affection; and all the more firmly attached, the more violent the persecution they have to suffer from the ministry. The pastors will follow Peter, and the flocks their pastors. There are not many Norfolks, Beaumonts, and Ansteys, thank God, remaining in the British Isles, and the few there may be are of no account, for they can find sympathy only in the ranks of Anglicans, where, after all, they are despised.

This change, on which we congratulate our transatlantic brethren, does not in the least violate the conditions on which the Catholic relief bill was granted, for it must be presumed to have been a contingency foreseen and accepted by the government. The government may have hoped, and even believed, that English and Irish Catholics would, as a matter of fact, remain Gallican, but it knew that neither it nor any declarations of English or Irish bishops could bind them to remain so, because it knew that the ultimate authority in the case is Rome, not the national bishops, and that no declarations of the latter could bind, against the approbation, or even permission, of the Roman pontiff. Últramontanism, as it is called, if not precisely of faith, is yet, as all the world knows, not only permitted, but favored by Rome, as the very name implies, and no Catholic can be forbidden to hold it, or censured for insisting on it. The government could not, therefore, grant Catholic emancipation without conceding to every Catholic the right to hold and insist on it if he chose. The whole question is a domestic question, with which those outside have nothing to do. To them ultramontanes and Gallicans are alike Catholics, and Catholic relief necessarily implies the relief of the one class as much as of the other. The attempt of the Quarterly to prove that Catholics have violated the conditions on which the relief bill was granted, because they do not in all respects coincide with the views set forth in certain declarations made

at the time the question was under discussion, fails, because those declarations were not put forth by the highest Catholic authority, and because, if they were put forth by any authority, it was by an authority which the government knew was subordinate to another, which might at any moment reverse its decisions.

But passing over this we meet the Quarterly Review on its own ground. Even supposing the Catholics of England and Ireland are not acting now in accordance with the conditions on which the relief bill was granted, they cannot be censured. Suppose they are using the political power accorded them by that bill to disturb the Protestant establishment, the government has not a word to say against them; because, since that establishment is only a creature of the civil government, they are only exercising their rights as freemen and British subjects in disturbing it, and because the government has been the first to violate its engagements towards them. The conditions on which the relief bill was granted contained reciprocal engagements, and bound the government to Catholics, as well as Catholics to the government. It promised them the free profession and exercise of their religion, and they in turn promised it, by oath if you will, in consideration of this freedom, to use no political power which they might acquire by emancipation to disturb either the Protestant settlement or the Protestant establishment. We need not tell the reviewer, that the breach of a contract by the one party releases the other; for he assumes it throughout his argument, and on the strength of it seeks to justify the government in reënacting the civil disabilities of Catholics. Now the government has been the first to break its faith, and in its ecclesiastical titles bill it has violated its promise of freedom to Catholics; for that act is incompatible with the free exercise of their religion. The act of Catholics which called forth that bill was no violation of their engagements, declarations, or oaths; for it was authorized by the act of 1829, which granted them religious freedom, and it was in contravention of no law of the realm, as is evident from the fact, that it was necessary to pass a new law to meet the case. The government, having by this act broken the compact, by its own act released Catholics from their obligation to keep it, and threw them back on their rights as freemen and British subjects, and left them necessarily the same right to use their political power against the establishment, that others have to use

theirs in its favor. No party can stand on its own wrong. The wrong of the government released the Catholics from all their special obligations, and however they may use their power against the establishment, it cannot complain.

The truth of the case, however, is, that Catholics are not doing what they are accused of doing, or any thing really incompatible with their declarations and oaths. The government in the ecclesiastical titles bill has declared the profession and exercise of their religion illegal in the United Kingdom, and they have merely combined, in their own defence, to use what political power they have, in a legal way, to get that bill repealed, and the freedom of their religion acknowledged. That is, they seek by legal means to defend and secure the freedom understood to be conceded by the relief bill of 1829. This is the simple fact in the case, and we should like to know what there is in this which conflicts with any engagement they have entered into. No Catholic in the realm dreams of disturbing the Protestant settlement, or disputing the right of the present reigning family to the crown; and no one, as far as we have seen, proposes by any political or legislative action to destroy the Anglican Church, if church it can be called. The oath taken by Catholic electors and senators binds them to be loyal subjects of the queen, but it does not bind them to use their political power to uphold the church establishment, or forbid them to withdraw from it the patronage of the state. Catholics as members of parliament have the same rights as any other members have; they sit there on terms of perfect equality with the rest, and nobody can pretend that it is not competent for parliament, if it sees fit, to withdraw all support from the establishment, and sever all connection between it and the state. There is a difference between not using a power to disturb, and using it to sustain, the Anglican Church. To the former a Catholic might, perhaps, under peculiar circumstances, lawfully pledge himself; to the latter he could not, for he can never pledge himself to sustain a false church without forswearing his own.

In any light, therefore, that we choose to consider it, the complaints brought against English or Irish Catholics are unfounded, and they are made only for the purpose of diverting attention from the just complaints which Catones themselves make. The Quarterly only renews the old Protestant trick, that of wronging Catholics, and then pretending that it is Catholics who have wronged Protestants;

of provoking Catholics by gross injustice to acts of selfdefence, and then turning round and accusing them of breaking the peace. The trick has been repeated too often, and has become rather stale. As far as we can see, our English and Irish brethren are only using their political power in their own defence, and we are right thankful that they have the spirit and the energy to do it. They and we are one body; their lot is our lot, and their victory or defeat is victory or defeat for us. One of the members cannot suffer but the whole body suffers with it. They have their "Irish Brigade" in parliament, and we trust it will lack neither courage nor firmness, neither ardor nor unanimity, and that it will steadily and unitedly oppose every ministry that refuses to repeal the ecclesiastical titles bill, and to guaranty to Catholics full and unrestricted freedom to profess and practise their religion, in all fidelity and submission to their spiritual chief. We expect this from the "Irish Brigade," for their sakes and our own. This much

they owe to the Catholics of Great Britain and Ireland and of the world. We hope they will make the Catholic question their first object, to be postponed or subordinated to no other, for the rights and interests of the church, though politicians are apt to forget it, are paramount to all others, and in securing them all others are virtually secured. These secured, it will be easy to carry such measures of temporal relief as may be necessary; for the merit of securing these will secure the blessing of God, and his assistance. The children of this world are wiser in their day and generation than the children of light; but this need not discourage us, for the folly of the children of light is wiser than the wisdom of the world. God has a voice in human affairs, and takes care that it shall always be seen that his cause does not stand in human wisdom or in human virtue. Whoever would. wish to prosper in that cause must rely on him, and not on himself. Prayer is better than numbers or strength. We presume our friends of the "Brigade" know this, and therefore we count on their success.

The prospect for England is not bright, but what is to be her fate we know not. We owe her no personal enmity, and we wish her well. But she has sinned greatly, and has a long account to settle. There are many in heaven and on earth that cry out, "How long, O Lord, how long?" Her ages of misrule in Ireland, and the multiplicd wrongs which she has inflicted upon the warm-hearted Irish people, her