FOOTNOTES:
[2] II. Cor., x. 5.
[3] II. Cor., xii. 2-4.
[4] Rom., xi. 33.
[5] See Mr. Barlow's book, pp. 37 (note), 38, 39.
[6] Matth., xxv. 41-46.
[7] Matth., xviii. 8.
[8] Mark, ix. 42, 43, 44, 45, 47.
[9] Matth., iii. 12.
[10] Is., lxvi. 24.
[11] Apoc., xx. 9, 10, 15.
[12] Pp. 38-39. The words in italics are so printed in Mr. Barlow's book.
[13] See pp. 7-8, where this principle is advanced in a still more confident tone, and with even less regard for the maxims of the Gospel. We extract the following passage: "I do truly believe that if every man, before repeating the Athanasian Creed, would sit down quietly, and—say for five minutes—steadily endeavour to realize in his imagination, as far as he is capable of doing it, what the contents of the notion 'Eternal Torments' are, we should find an enormous increase of so-called heresy with respect to these portions [the "damnatory clauses">[ of the Creed. The responses, 'Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly', would be nearly confined to the clerk". Five minutes' reflection is quite enough, in the estimate of Mr. Barlow, to convince every man that he ought to abandon the faith of ages.
[14] Apoc., xxi. 27.
[15] Prov., xxiv. 16.
[16] I. Cor., vi. 9, 10; Gal., v. 21.
[17] Rom., x. 15; Isaias, lii. 7.
[18] Isaias, liv 2, 3.
[19] Matth., xxxv. 30
[20] Luke, ii. 34.
[21] See Mr. Barlow's book, p. 22; also p. 17.
[22] Apoc., xxi. 4.
[23] Apoc., xxi. 4.
CATHOLIC EDUCATION—DISENDOWMENT OF THE PROTESTANT ESTABLISHMENT.
The last year terminated with the establishment in Dublin of an association, which, we trust, whilst protecting the material interests of the country, will contribute to put an end to religious oppression and intolerance, and to spread the blessings of Catholic education through all Ireland. Undertaking a task so meritorious in itself, and so much in accordance with the objects of the Record, the association will have our best wishes and co-operation. Its first meeting was held in the Rotundo on the 29th of December last, and a vast number of influential and respectable laymen, from city and country, many clergymen, and several archbishops and bishops attended. Its proceedings were most impressive, and the speakers all displayed great moderation accompanied with energy and firmness in their addresses. We may add that the speeches of the Archbishop of Cashel and the Bishop of Cloyne, on the claims of tenants for compensation for beneficial improvements, were most eloquent and convincing; that the Bishop of Elphin made an excellent and learned defence of the rights of Catholics to a Catholic system of education; and that the Archbishop of Dublin, supported by Mr. O'Neill Daunt, proved to the satisfaction of all present that the Protestant Establishment in Ireland is a nuisance and an insult, and ought to be abolished. We regret that the limits of this periodical will not allow us to enter fully into the various questions discussed at the meeting: we must restrict ourselves to a brief article on the topics most closely connected with the objects of the Record—we mean the question of education and of the Church. We cannot, however, but recommend our readers to assist the association by their influence, their counsels, and contributions, being full of hope that Ireland will derive great advantages, temporal and spiritual, from its labours.
The Lord Mayor, by whose influence and authority the meeting had been convened, having taken the chair, the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Cullen, was called on to propose the first resolution. Before doing so he explained the objects of the association, and showed that they were so moderate, so reasonable, and so necessary, that no liberal minded man could refuse to support them.
"It is proposed", said he, "to protect liberty of religion by relieving the great majority of the inhabitants of this country from an oppressive and degrading burden, forced on them for the maintenance of the Protestant Establishment, which they look on as a galling and permanent insult; it is proposed to encourage the growth of learning, by holding out equal hopes to every class, and putting on a footing of equality all who engage in the career of letters and science; and finally it is proposed to restore prosperity to this country, by giving inducements to the people to invest their capital in useful and permanent improvements".
Having thus stated the reasons for founding the new association, the Archbishop briefly alluded to the necessity of a good education, to the services of the Catholic Church in promoting science and letters, and to the glorious mission of carrying the light of the gospel and true civilization to pagan nations, which was given to Ireland for centuries after her conversion. That mission was interrupted by Danish and Anglo-Saxon invasions. Continued attempts to force the Reformation on our forefathers, the prohibition of Catholic schools, and a most galling system of penal laws, afterwards reduced our country to a state of misery and degradation, in which it was impossible for the masses of the people to approach the fountains of knowledge, or to render services to other countries. As soon, however, as liberty began to dawn, active efforts were made by the Catholic laity and clergy to repair the ruins of past times, and within the present century innumerable schools, colleges, convents, and other educational establishments, have been called into existence, which are rendering great services to the country, and preparing to make it again what it once was—a land of sages and saints. The exertions and sacrifices made in this holy cause are a proof of the zeal of the Catholics of Ireland for education, and reflect the greatest honour on their charity and generosity.
Let us now look to what government has done in regard to Catholic education. In the first place, our rulers in past times prohibited all Catholic schools under the severest penalties, determined, it would appear, to sink the people into the degrading depths of ignorance, or to compel them when acquiring knowledge to imbibe at the same time Protestant doctrines. Secondly, a Protestant university and Protestant schools were founded and richly endowed with the confiscated property of Catholic schools or monasteries, and all possible privileges and honours were lavishly conferred on them by the state, in order to give them weight and influence, and to render them more powerful in their assaults on the ancient creed of Ireland. Thirdly, these institutions are still preserved, and possess immense property, nearly all derived from public grants. Besides other vast sources of income, Trinity College holds about two hundred thousand acres of land, and the several endowed schools are worth seventy or eighty thousand a year and own a great deal of landed property. Fourthly, it is to be observed that the management of these schools is altogether in Protestant hands, the teaching Protestant, and their atmosphere thoroughly impregnated with Protestantism. If any Catholic be admitted into those institutions, his faith is exposed to great danger, and unhappily it is too true that many who ventured to run the risk, perished therein, so that we find it recorded that several Catholics, when passing through the ordeal of Protestant education, lost their faith and became ministers and preachers of error. At present there are Protestant bishops and archdeacons, and other dignitaries, now enemies of the ancient faith, who commenced their career in Trinity College as very humble members of the Catholic Church. I say nothing of the many Catholics who, in consequence of the training received in Trinity College, never frequent any sacrament of their Church, and neglect all religious duties. The parents who expose their children to such dangers cannot be excused from a grievous breach of the trust committed to them by God. Can they be admitted to sacraments?
Keeping in mind the facts just stated, may we not ask, were not Protestants provided with everything they could desire for educational purposes? was it necessary to adopt other measures in their favour?
Now such being the case, had not we a right to expect that when new educational arrangements were to be made, the past sufferings of Catholics, the spoliation of their property, and their actual wants, should be taken into account? Was it to be supposed that their claims should be overlooked in order to give further advantage to Protestantism? Reason and sound policy would have prohibited such suppositions. But "aliter superis visum". Instead of repairing past injustice and making some compensation for the confiscations of times gone by, the government, in all new measures for promoting education, seemed to forget the Catholics, and to think only of Protestant interests, just as if they were not abundantly provided for already. Thus, when the Queen's Colleges were projected, it was determined to establish them, and to endow them at the expense of the Catholics of the country, and on principles so hostile to Catholicity, that the Sovereign Pontiff and Irish bishops were obliged to condemn them as dangerous to faith and morals, whilst a Protestant statesman admitted that they were a gigantic scheme of godless education. Hence, no Catholic parent, though taxed for their support, unless he be ready to immolate his children to Baal, can send them to institutions thus anathematised. Have not Catholics great ground to complain upon this head?
The national system was also founded on bad principles, and to protect the consciences of Protestant children, even in schools where they never attend, Catholic instruction was prohibited in them during the common hours of class.
To illustrate the effects of this prohibition, the Archbishop refers to part of his own diocese—the county Dublin—in which there are 145 so-called National Schools, frequented by 36,826 Catholic children, without the intermixture of one single Protestant, and asks is it not most unjust and insulting to banish Catholic books, Catholic practices, the history of the Catholic Church, from such schools, and to treat them as if they were mixed or filled with Protestants? If the case were reversed—if there were so large a number of Protestant children in schools without any mixture of Catholics, would Protestants tolerate any regulation by which every mention of their religion would be banished from such schools? Why apply one rule to Catholics and another to Protestants? The Archbishop then adds:
"Let me repeat it: Catholic children in purely Catholic schools must pass the greater part of the day without any act or word of religion, lest they should offend Protestants who are present only in imagination. No crucifix, no image of the Blessed Mother of God, no sacred pictures, no religious emblems, though experience teaches that such objects make excellent impressions on the youthful mind, are tolerated in National schools, even when no Protestant frequents them. No Catholic book can be used, and even the works of such men as Bossuet, Massillon, Fenelon, the most eloquent writers of modern times, must be excluded because they were Catholics and inculcate Catholic doctrines. The only books used by Catholics in these schools have been compiled by the late rationalistic Archbishop of Dublin, by Dr. Carlisle, a Presbyterian, and other Protestants, and are tinged with an anti-Catholic spirit. It is to be added, that the history of our Irish saints and missionaries and of the ancient Church of Ireland and its doctrines, as well as the sad narrative of our sufferings and persecutions, is completely ignored. Were it necessary to throw still greater light on the spirit of the mixed system, we could show that the late Dr. Whately, one of its great patrons, declared in his last pastoral charge to the clergy of Kildare, that his object in introducing certain Scripture lessons into the schools was to shake the religious convictions of the people, and to dispel what he is pleased to call their scriptural darkness. When things are thus conducted, have we not here again great reason to complain?"
The Archbishop also urges against the national system, its tendency to throw the education of this Catholic country into the hands of a Protestant government, whose past history proves that it has been always hostile to Catholic interests. Model and training and agricultural schools, which are completely withdrawn from Catholic control, have this tendency. Are not inspectors and other managers of the system altogether government nominees? When books were to be selected, was not the same object promoted by deputing to compile them Protestant archbishops, Presbyterian ministers, and other Protestants, who banished from them everything Catholic and national, and made them breathe a spirit of English supremacy and anti-Catholic prejudice? May not the experience of past ages be appealed to to prove that education under such government control becomes hostile to true religion, tends to introduce a spirit of despotism, and to rob the subject of his liberty? This was the tendency of all government enactments on education in Ireland for centuries. The Archbishop observes:
"Robespierre and other French despots fully understood all this, when they proclaimed that all children were the property of the state, to be educated under its care, at the public expense. When the instruction of the rising generations and the direction of schools falls under the absolute control of the ruling powers of the Earth, that sort of wisdom which Saint Paul calls earthly, sensual, diabolical, soon begins to prevail; the wisdom from above falls away, and neither religion nor true Christian liberty can be safe".
Having examined in this way the present defects and shortcomings of education in Ireland, as far as it receives aid from the state, the Archbishop insisted that Catholics have a decided claim to a Catholic university, with every privilege and right conferred upon Protestant universities, to Catholic training and model schools, and to a system of education under which the faith and morals of Catholic children would be safe from all danger. In England[24] the schools for the people supported by government are denominational, and the Catholics, though only a fraction of the population, have all the advantages of a Catholic system of education. Why should Ireland be deprived of rights which are freely granted to every class of people not only in England and Scotland, but in all the British colonies? Are the Catholics of this country to be degraded and insulted on account of their religion? Would such a mode of acting be in conformity with the liberality of the present age?
Since the Archbishop made the foregoing observations, the Holy Father, our supreme guide in matters of religion, has published a series of propositions which he had condemned and reprobated on various occasions. We insert three of those propositions which bear upon education:
The forty-fifth is as follows:
"XLV. The entire government of public schools in which the youth of any Christian state is educated, except (to a certain extent) in the case of episcopal seminaries, may and ought to appertain to the civil power, and belong to it so far that no other authority whatsoever shall be recognized as having any right to interfere in the discipline of the schools, the arrangement of the studies, the conferring of degrees, in the choice or approval of the teachers".
The forty-seventh adds:
"XLVII. The best theory of civil society requires that popular schools open to the children of every class of the people, and, generally, all public institutes intended for instruction in letters and philosophical sciences, and for carrying on the education of youth, should be freed from all ecclesiastical authority, control, and interference, and should be fully subjected to the civil and political power, at the pleasure of the rulers and according to the standard of the prevalent opinions of the age".
The forty-eighth bears on the same subject:
"XLVIII. Catholics may approve of a system of educating youth, unconnected with Catholic faith and the power of the Church, and which regards the knowledge of merely natural things, and only, or at least primarily, the ends of earthly social life".
Let our readers attentively consider these propositions. They undoubtedly reprobate what is called mixed education, or the system which endeavours to separate education from religion, as the Queen's Colleges profess to do. They appear to us also most distinctly to condemn the principles on which the National Schools are founded. In many of those schools all religious education is excluded, and in those which are under Presbyterian and other similar patrons, as well as in model and training schools, the rights of the bishops of the Catholic Church, to whom Christ gave the power of teaching all nations, are completely ignored. In every National School the teaching and practice of religion are strictly prohibited during the hours of class. Such a system appears to fall under the condemnation of the Holy See. We shall return to this matter again on some future occasion. In the mean time, we shall merely add, that if we wish to be true children of the Church, we must receive with humility, and in a spirit of obedience, the decisions of Christ's vicar on Earth, and reprobate and condemn from the inmost of our hearts the propositions which he, using the power given to him by the Eternal Shepherd of our souls, reprobates and condemns. The only view his Holiness proposed to himself in censuring the propositions we refer to was, to secure for the rising generations the greatest blessing that can be conferred on them—a good religious education, and the preservation of their faith from danger. As dutiful members of the true Church we ought to act on the lessons of wisdom that have been given to us.
Having treated at some length of the education question, the Archbishop next directed the attention of the meeting to the condition of the agricultural and manufacturing interests of Ireland, showing that it is the duty of those in power to apply immediate remedies to the evils of the country, which menace us with universal ruin, and then proceeded to examine the proposed disendowment of the Protestant Establishment. History informs us that the Irish Protestant Church had its origin in an act declaring Henry VIII. head of the Church, which was passed by the Irish parliament in 1536, and in another act of the same parliament by which a similar dignity was conferred on Queen Elizabeth. A statement on this subject made by Dr. Gregg, Protestant Bishop of Cork, in a late pastoral charge, is altogether at variance with history. His Lordship's words are:
"She (the Protestant Church) sprang from the truth, was nurtured in truth, laden with truth, in truth she delights, to the truth she appeals, and by God's gracious blessing, in mighty truth shall she stand".
These are emphatic words; but, if he wished to speak correctly, the writer should have said that the Church he eulogises sprang from the passions and despotism of Henry VIII.; was nurtured by the avarice, hypocrisy, ambition, and corruption of Elizabeth; derived spiritual powers from a body of men who had no such powers themselves; that to the sword, the gibbet, and penal laws she owes her propagation; that her existence still depends upon brute force; and that, so little does she stand on or uphold truth, that she is not able to defend the Gospel any longer, or to support the doctrines and ordinances of religion. She could not restrain the late Protestant Archbishop of Dublin from explaining away the fundamental mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation, nor Dr. Colenso from denying the inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures, nor Rev. Mr. Barlow, a Fellow of Trinity College, from impugning the eternity of punishment in another world. She affords so little light to her children, that, according to a report of the Church Pastoral Aid Society, signed by several dignitaries of the Establishment, millions of those children are pining away in worse than pagan vice and ignorance. Finally, so far from resting on truth, her only support is the arm of the State, whose creature she is, and at whose nod she may cease to exist.
Having obtained spiritual authority by an act of the temporal power, much in the same way as the Roman emperors obtained divine honours by decrees of the senate, Henry VIII. and Elizabeth set about their new functions, and determined to show themselves worthy leaders of the Reformation. There were many richly endowed monasteries in Ireland at the time of Henry, and several continued to exist even till the days of Elizabeth. The inmates of those institutions passed their time in prayer and study; they had rendered great services to literature by copying and preserving the works of classical antiquity, whilst their labours for religion and the poor were worthy of the highest praise. There were also many convents of religious ladies, who devoted their lives to the service of God and their neighbour, to the education of youth, and who edified the world by the sweet odour of their virtues. By the new heads of the Church, and the new patrons of the Gospel, those merits were looked on as crimes, and all religious orders were suppressed.
In Ireland there was an ancient institution founded by St. Patrick, which for more than a thousand years had maintained its connection with the Apostolic See, the true rock on which Christ built His Church, and had always preserved the integrity and purity of the Catholic faith. The existence of that venerable Irish Church was not consistent with the supremacy of the crown in spiritual matters, and its destruction was decreed.
At the same time, a religion, with new doctrines, a new ceremonial, new liturgical books, and forms of prayer in the English language, then almost unknown in Ireland, was proclaimed, and all the sanction was given to it that could be derived from an act of parliament or a royal decree. It was pretended that this religion was to restore liberty of conscience to the world; but history shows that it enforced its teaching by penal laws, by fire and sword, and by every sort of violence.
The monasteries of men, the convents of nuns, the episcopal sees, and the parochial churches, were possessed, at that time, of considerable revenues. This property was not the gift of the English government. In great part it was of ancient origin, as we may conclude from the fact that in the year 1179, shortly after the English invasion, Pope Alexander III. confirmed to St. Laurence O'Toole nearly the same possessions which are still held by the see of Dublin, and which he had inherited from his predecessors who lived before English rule began in Ireland. It was also private property, belonging to monasteries and convents, and to the Church, so that neither king nor parliament had any claim on it. But ancient rights and justice and prescription were no longer to be respected; the reforming monarchs did not hesitate to change the law of God and of nature, and to ignore the maxim that every one should have his own. Hence, all ecclesiastical property was confiscated. A large portion was given to the agents and minions of royal despotism, and another portion was devoted to the support of bishops and ministers of a new creed and religion, and turned away altogether from the purposes for which it had been destined by the donors; so that what was originally given for the support of the Catholic Church was now handed over to an establishment just called into existence, whose principal aim has always been to decry and misrepresent the ancient Church, to persecute its ministers, and to uproot it, if possible, from the soil.
The heads of the Irish Protestant Establishment, Henry and Elizabeth, having commenced their spiritual rule by an act of robbery and spoliation, continued to propagate their new religion by intimidation, by violence, and penal enactments. The old nobility of Ireland, both of Norman and Irish descent, were persecuted and robbed of their possessions in order to convince them of that Gospel truth which first beamed from Boleyn's eyes; for the same purpose whole provinces were laid desolate, and torrents of blood inhumanly shed. In such proceedings we find a great deal to remind us of the persecutions inflicted on the early Christians by the Roman emperors and a singular resemblance to the system adopted by Mahomet for the propagation of the impure doctrines of the Koran; and as that impostor spread desolation through the most flourishing regions of the East, so did the founders of the Protestant establishment reduce the blooming fields of Erin to the condition of a howling wilderness, and like him they became the votaries of ignorance, and carried on a long and destructive war against Catholic schools and education.
There was, however, something worse in the mode of propagating the doctrines of the Reformation than in that which was adopted for the maintenance or introduction of Paganism and Mahometanism. Those forms of worship openly avowed their designs, and publicly professed their enmity to the Christian religion. The proceedings of those who promoted and supported the Church Establishment were, on the contrary, marked by the vilest and most degrading hypocrisy. They pretended and professed to be the sincere friends of liberty of conscience, and of the progress of education and enlightenment, whilst at the same time they were the most dangerous enemies of every kind of freedom and progress, and endeavoured to establish the most galling despotism, and to spread ignorance through Ireland.
Innumerable proofs are at hand of the despotic tendencies of the Establishment. We merely give one instance, related by Mant in his Ecclesiastical History at the year 1636, in which the Protestant bishops, with Usher at their head, made the following declaration:—that
"The religion of the Papists is superstitious and idolatrous; their faith and doctrine erroneous and heretical; their Church, in respect to both, apostatical. To give them, therefore, a toleration, or to consent that they may freely exercise their religion and profess their faith and doctrine, is a grievous sin."—Mant, vol. i. p. 510.
And recollect that this declaration was made against the ancient religion of the country, a religion established in it for more than one thousand years, and that it was made for the purpose of excluding millions of the people from every office of trust and emolument. Nothing worse can be found in the annals of Paganism or Mahometanism. The Archbishop continues:
"But, passing over a remoter period, have we not to regret that the spirit which then prevailed still continues to manifest itself in our own days? And, indeed, were not the heads of the Protestant establishment the most active opponents of Catholic Emancipation? Who were the great promoters of the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill? Was not the head of the Establishment, in this city, most anxious, a few years ago, to put convents and monasteries under police control, and to give every annoyance to the holy and pious virgins who devote themselves to the service of God and the poor? And are not the principles acted on by the Establishment still embodied in Protestant oaths? and can we be surprised that dissensions exist in this country, and that it is reduced to so deplorable a state as it is now in, when we reflect that by such oaths and declarations discord is excited in the country, rulers and subjects placed in a state of hostility, and the people divided into factions and parties?"
As to education, we shall merely observe that the supporters of the Establishment left no means untried to banish it altogether from among the masses of the people in Ireland. Catholic schools were suppressed, and their property confiscated; the erection of new schools prohibited; no Catholic parent allowed to give a Catholic education to his children at home, and he was subjected to the severest penalties if he sent them to foreign schools. What more could be done to suppress the knowledge of the Christian religion by a Julian or a Mahomet? Yet, those who acted in that way cry out that they alone are the friends of progress and enlightenment, and that Catholics seek for nothing but darkness. Was there ever a more decided manifestation of recklessness and hypocrisy?
Having given in detail some other instances of the violent and persecuting measures which were used for the propagation of Protestantism, the Archbishop proceeds to examine the results obtained by them:—
"Let us now ask", says he, "what have been the fruits of so much bigotry, of so much violence, and of so many penal laws? The late census tells us that every effort to introduce Protestantism has been a complete failure, and that notwithstanding so many persecutions and sufferings, the old Catholic faith is still the religion of the land, deeply rooted in the affections of the people. Without entering into details which would occasion too much delay, I shall merely state that all the members of the Establishment in this kingdom are under seven hundred thousand; that out of the two thousand four hundred and twenty-eight parishes into which Ireland is divided, there were, in 1861, one hundred and ninety-nine parishes containing no members of the Establishment, five hundred and seventy-five parishes containing not more than twenty, four hundred and sixteen containing between twenty and fifty, three hundred and forty-nine containing between fifty and one hundred—in all, one thousand five hundred and thirty-nine parishes, each with fewer than one hundred parishioners. I will add that, according to the same census, the parish of St. Peter's, in Dublin, contains more Catholics than the eleven dioceses of Kilmacduagh, Kilfenora, Killala, Achonry, Ossory, Cashel, Emly, Waterford, Lismore, Ross, and Clonfert contain Protestants: and that the Catholics of the diocese of Dublin exceed by thirty-five thousand all the Protestants of the Established Church in twenty-eight dioceses of Ireland; indeed, in all the dioceses of Ireland, excepting those of Armagh, Clogher, Down, and Dublin. Whilst such figures show that all the protection of the State, the persecution of Catholics, the confiscation of their property, the suppression of Catholic schools, the lavish endowment of Protestant schools, and innumerable penal laws, have not been able to establish Protestantism in Ireland, they must convince us at the same time, that it is most unreasonable, and contrary to the interests of the people and to a sound policy, to keep up a vast and expensive ecclesiastical establishment for the sake of so small a minority, and in opposition to the wishes of the great mass of the population".
The Archbishop next quoted several authorities from Protestant writers condemnatory of the Anglican establishment, and among others, that of Lord Brougham, who, confirming his own views by those of the celebrated Edmund Burke, says:
"I well remember a phrase used by one not a foe of Church Establishments—I mean Mr. Burke. 'Don't talk of its being a church! It is a wholesale robbery!'... I have, my lords, heard it called an anomaly, and I say that it is an anomaly of so gross a kind, that it outrages every principle of common sense, and every one endowed with common reason must feel that it is the most gross outrage to that common sense as it is also to justice. Such an establishment, kept up for such a purpose, kept up by such means, and upheld by such a system, is a thing wholly peculiar to Ireland, and could be tolerated nowhere else. That such a system should go on in the nineteenth century; that such a thing should go on while all the arts are in a forward and onward course, while all the sciences are progressing, while all morals and religion too—for, my lords, there never was more of religion and morality than is now presented in all parts of the country,—that this gross abuse, the most outrageous of all, should be allowed to continue, is really astonishing. It cannot be upheld, unless the tide of knowledge shall turn back, unless we return to the state in which things were a couple of centuries ago".
After quoting several other authorities similar to that of Lord Brougham, the Archbishop called on his hearers to unite with him in calling for the abolition of the Establishment.
"When you consider", said he, "the reasons and the weight of authority which I have alleged, I trust you all will admit that an establishment which traces back its origin to the lust, the avarice, and the despotism of Henry VIII. and his daughter; an establishment introduced by force and violence, and that has no support save in the protection of the state, of which it is the creature and the slave; an establishment that has been the persevering enemy of civil and religious liberty; that has called for penal laws in every century from the days of Elizabeth to the passing of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act; that has never failed to oppose every proposal for the relaxation of such laws, not only in the days of Strafford and Clarendon, but even when there was question of emancipation in the midst of the liberality of the present century; an establishment that has inflicted great evils on Ireland by depriving the mass of the people of all the means of education, by persecuting schoolmasters, and seizing on and confiscating schools, and that has been always the fruitful source of dissensions in the country—when you consider all these things, you will undoubtedly agree with me, that such an establishment ought not to be any longer tolerated in this country—that it ought to be disendowed, and its revenues applied to purposes of public utility".