But a more cogent objection at first sight to us, the opposers of the Maynooth grant, seems this: "In 1796 your party it was that originally proposed and founded any grant at all. If it was right then, it is right now. And, as to the increase from nine thousand pounds per annum to twenty-six thousand, that is a consideration for accountants rather than for statesmen; the sum cannot affect the principle."
Here are our answers; for there are more points to answer than one.
First, It is not true, or near to being true, that the sum at issue could not affect the principle concerned. Many are the cases in which the quantities of the objects concerned in acts entirely vary the qualities of the acts. The law itself, which professedly neglects trifles, [de minimis nor curat lex,] and which, in criminal cases, will not entertain a charge where the injury is below a certain money amount, shows how essential to the moral estimate of acts is the quantity of the value in issue. Money being power, quite as much as ever knowledge was power, and much less restrictedly so, there arises with the variations of the sum the largest range of variations in the interpretation of the understanding between the parties as to the intention of giver and receiver. That sum is a bribe, which, divided by ten, is a fair acknowledgment of services performed. That sum in other cases is an insult, which, being centupled, would be an honourable expression of distinguished merit. Nine thousand pounds might have been given, and (if we go back to the facts) really was given as a donation to an abject pauper; whilst an addition of seventeen thousand more may be accepted—and (if we consult the facts) will be accepted—in the haughty spirit of one who affects to regard as a testimony to his own merit what secretly he believes to be offered in trembling propitiation. It was Burke who suggested the first endowment of a Popish College; but how different are acts nominally the same! His motives were the motives of a reflecting patriot; Sir Robert Peel's are the motives of a compromiser between adverse interests, whose heart, though honourable as regards intentions, does not prompt him to give a preponderating weight to either side, however opposed in principle. The motives, however, belong to our next head. At present, we are dealing with the money amount. It is alleged that seventeen thousand added to nine thousand can make no difference as to principle, and that all we, who reverence Burke and Pitt, are bound by their precedent. Now to that point the distinct answer is—that the nine thousand of Burke and Pitt was given as an eleemosynary dole to a body too poor, and at that time too abject, in political consideration, to move jealousy in any quarter. But the sum now asked is very nearly threefold of that fixed by Mr Pitt, and (if we add the interest of the outfit for the new furniture, appointments, &c.) is more than threefold. The small sum was given as charity; was given as an annual vote; and the large one will be given (if it is given) as an endowment in perpetuity to a haughty political interest, to a corrival of Trinity college, to a body that has moved jealousy in every quarter, and finally, (which sickens us to recollect,) to a body that will have the audacity, in concert with Mr O'Connell, one year after every favour shall have been received, to disown it as a subject for gratitude—acknowledging it only as the pledge and monument of English panic.
Secondly, As to the motives, these grew out of the perils diffused by the French Revolution. The year 1797, which followed the suggestion of this pecuniary aid to the Irish priests, was the last year of Burke's life. In what light he viewed the contagion from the anti-social frenzy then spreading over Europe, may be seen from the oracular works through which he spoke his mind both in 1796 and 1797. He was profoundly impressed with the disorganizing tendencies of the principles, but still more of the licentious cravings for change, which from the centre of Paris had crept like a mist over the whole face of Europe. France was in a less tumultuous state then than in 1792-3-4; but, as respected Europe generally, the aspect of things was worse; because naturally the explosion of frenzy in Paris during the Reign of Terror, took a space of two or three years to reproduce and train the corresponding sympathies in other great capitals of the Continent. By 1797, the contagion was mature. Thence came the necessity for some domestic establishment where Irish priests should be educated: it was no longer safe that they should resort to St Omers: both because the unsettled license of thinking upon all things established would form the very worst atmosphere for clerical sobriety; and more specifically because all the Jacobins of the time bore deadly hatred to England. The priests trained at St Omers, would in fact have become a corps of spies, decoys, and conspirators in the service of France. The rebellion of '98 read a commentary on this text. And no policy, therefore, could have been wiser than to intercept such a result by a periodical grant to Maynooth; whilst the requisite dependency of the institution was secured by making the grant annual. Now, however, not only is it proposed to make it permanent, which (together with the enlarged amount) totally changes its character, but a greater change still is—that the original reason for any grant at all, the political reason, has entirely passed away. The objection to a continental education may be strong as regards the convenience of the Irish; but the inconvenience has no longer any relation to ourselves. No air in Europe can be tainted with a fiercer animosity to England than the air of Ireland. In this respect the students of Maynooth cannot be more perilously situated. Whilst we all know by the Repeal rent and the O'Connell yearly tribute, that the Irish Papists could easily raise three times the money demanded for Maynooth, if they were as willing to be just in a service of national duty as they are to be liberal in a service of conspiracy.
Thirdly, Connected with this question of motives, arises another aspect of the case. A college, it may be said, cannot do much in the way of modifying the political temper of a country, whether for the better or the worse. If disaffection to the government prevails in Ireland, that may argue no participation in such a spirit by the rules of Maynooth. But in another direction, Maynooth cannot plead innocence. The O'Connell agitation would at any rate, with or without Maynooth, have distempered all public loyalty amongst the lower classes. They could present no resistance to influences operating too strongly upon their nationality. But the priestly order, if originally by their training at all adorned with the graces proper to their profession, would not have fallen under the influence of acts so entirely mobbish. Yet we know that by no other engine has Mr O'Connell so powerfully operated on the Irish mind as through the agency of the priests. Not O'Connell moulded them for his service, but they presented themselves ready moulded to him; and with exceptions so rare as to argue a more extensive secularisation of the priestly mind throughout Ireland, than has ever been witnessed in the strongholds of Popery. This early preoccupation by a worldly taint of the clerical mind amongst the Irish Catholics, could not possibly have reached an excess so entirely without parallel in Europe, unless chiefly through profligate systems of training at Maynooth. In all Ireland there was found with difficulty any specimen of the simple rural pastor (so common in France) who withdrew himself from political strife. The priest who considered his spiritual character degraded by partisanship, (no matter in what service,) was nowhere to be heard of. Wherever Mr O'Connell wanted an agent, an intriguer, an instrument for rousing the people, he was sure of one in the parish priest. Now this fact is decisive upon the merits of Maynooth. It matters not what latitude may be allowed to variety of political views; no politics of any sort can be regarded as becoming to a village pastor. But allow him to be a politician, how could a priest become a tool without ruin to his spiritual character? Yet this is the Maynooth, training its alumni to two duties, the special duty of living in procinctu and in harness for every assault upon the Protestant establishment of their country, and for the unlimited duty of taking orders in any direction from Mr O'Connell—this is the Maynooth to which, for such merits, we have been paying nine thousand pounds annually for exactly fifty years, and are now required to pay three times as much for ever.
But from these narrower questions, directed to circumstantialities local and transitory, we wish to draw the reader's attention upon certain other questions larger and more philosophic. And, first of all, let us say a word upon one point continually raised, and not at all limited to Irish cases; viz. the latitude allowed by conscience to a Protestant in promoting the welfare of Papists, where it happens that the personal service is associated unavoidably with some service to the Popish cause. As individuals, or even as a collective body in the commonwealth, every liberal man would wish to protect and to favour his Catholic fellow-citizens, if he could do so without aiding them in their natural purpose of making proselytes. There are cases undoubtedly in which these mixed advantages for the person and for the creed would so blend as to offer a difficult problem in casuistry to a delicate conscience. Sir Robert Peel in the final debate on the second reading of the Maynooth bill, attempted to throw dust in the eyes of the House upon the principle concerned in cases of this nature; and even if he had been right in his argument, we believe that he would have gained little for the particular question concerned in the Maynooth grant. He argued, by way of showing how untenable was the notion that we could not conscientiously support a religion which we believed erroneous, that upon that hypothesis we should cut the ground from below our feet in the mode of supporting our own religion. The law of England insists upon the Dissenters paying church-rates and tithes to the English church; now, argued Sir Robert, the Dissenter might turn round and plead, in bar of this claim, the English churchman's demur to supporting Popery by supporting Maynooth. But the case accurately stated is—that no English churchman ever did demur to paying his quota towards Maynooth; on the contrary, he has paid it quietly for fifty years. What some few churchmen have demurred to was—not paying after the law had said "pay," but legislating for the payment; passing the annual vote for the payment. Now, if a Dissenter happens to be in Parliament, he is quite at liberty to make the same demur as to church-rates; but he makes his demur in the wrong quarter if he addresses it to the collector. So again, as regards the increased grant, and the permanent grant to Maynooth, if it passes the two Houses, we shall all of us pay our share without scruple; neither will our consciences be at all wounded, for we pay under the coercion of a distress-warrant, contingent upon our refusing to pay. It is the suffering the law to pass, without opposing it in one way or other, that would wound our consciences. And, again, the English law does not require a Dissenter to concur in the propriety of paying church-rates, it requires him only to pay them.
But we Protestants, in paying to Maynooth, supposing that we made ourselves parties to the payment by consenting to the bill, feel that we should be wilfully abetting the propagation of error. It is true that the Papist finds himself in the same necessity of contributing to what he regards as heresy by contributing to the support of the Protestant Establishment. But if a Protestant resorts to a country, or acquiesces in a country where Popery is established, he does not complain that he falls under the relation of a tributary to a system which did not seek him, but which he sought.
There are other casuistical points, arising out of these practical relations to systems of religious belief, which are often unskilfully mingled with cases like this of Maynooth; but they cannot disguise the broad distinction between the principle in that question and the principle in the question of Catholic emancipation. There the object was purely negative, viz. to liberate a body of men from certain incapacities. Successive penal laws had stripped the Papist of particular immunities and liberties. These were restored by emancipation. A defect was made good. But no positive powers were created by that measure. Now, on the other hand, when a large revenue is granted, (as by the pending Maynooth grant,) this is in effect to furnish artillery for covering advances upon hostile ground. This gives positive powers to Popery for propagating its errors. That Sir Robert Peel should hold such a mode of collusion with falsehood to be lawful—would be astonishing, were it not that he manifestly confounds the case of promoting, a law by votes, or any mode of active support, which is a true and substantial assent, with the case of paying under a demand of the law. Now this is no assent at all, any more than the surrendering your person passively to the arrest of a police-officer is an assent to the justice of the accusation, or to the reasonableness of the law under which you will be tried. To pay on the demand of the law is no assent at all, but an abridged process of yielding to the physical coercion of the law. You are aware of the steps through which the compulsory action of the law will travel, and it cannot make any difference as to the principle of your submission, that, for the sake of saving time, you yield to the first step, instead of waiting for the last. It is, therefore, no duty of a Protestant, in any circumstances, to abet Popery by any mode of support, but only seems to be so by confounding cases essentially different.
Next arises for notice, the very interesting question on the prospects of Popery at this moment and its chances of a great restoration, by means of combination with various forms of human power. One cause of error upon this subject lies in the notion that conspicuous obscurations of civil grandeur, jurisdiction, and wealth, which Popery has suffered of late years in almost every state, have therefore, been absolute losses of spiritual power. On the contrary, these losses are likely to strengthen Popery. Precisely in the most bigoted of Popish kingdoms—Austria, Bavaria, Spain, and Portugal—the Popish religion has been shorn, during the last fifty years, of it most splendid temporalities. The suppression of the Inquisition in Spain, &c., the extinction of religions houses on so vast a scale, the limitation of the Papal rights in the disposal of Bishops' sees, the confiscation or sale of church lands, to an amount unsuspected in Protestant countries—these and other convulsions have shaken the Papacy in a memorable degree. But it is certain that the vigour and vitality of Popery, in modes more appropriate to a spiritual power, are reviving. Popery has benefited by the removal, however harshly executed at the moment, of enormous abuses connected sometimes with wealth, sometimes only with the reputation of wealth, but in either case with a weight of popular odium. The vessel has righted and become buoyant by the sacrifice of masts and rigging. A spirit of activity has again manifested itself in many directions. And with this has concurred a new body of hopes, arising from social accidents in America. Throughout the great central valley of North America, and along the line of the most recent inroads into the western forests, a great opening has arisen, of late years, for throwing a network of spiritual power over a vast territory that is rapidly unfolding its power and wealth. Through this opening has poured, for some years like a spring-tide, a huge host of Catholic missionaries. Such was the extensive demand for spiritual ministration amongst a population multiplying to excess, that any order of Christian clergy would have been welcome. Here is a basis laid for future magnificent development of Popish power. Rome itself has been stirred and agitated with the prospect of seeing its energies revive, and of reaping a malicious retribution by entering into combination with that Teutonic race, from whom, during the last three centuries, she had received her deadliest wounds. But a doubt arises, whether this very combination will not be more likely to impress a totally new character upon the Papal religion. The Saxon energy will be likely to strangle Popery, rather than Popery in the long run to pervert that energy. In England itself, through Oxford, unexpected auguries have dawned upon Rome, of a new birth for the pomps of Papal Rome. And exactly at this crisis of hope and unlimited anticipation, the splendid endowment of Maynooth, solemnly proposed and vigorously pressed forward by a cautious minister of England, coinciding also with the spasmodic throes of the Irish people to establish an independent nationality, have doubtless spread through the councils of the Vatican as much of what will probably be found visionary expectation, as through the hearts of our own Protestant countrymen, they have spread of what equally, we trust, will be converted by this national insurrection against Maynooth into visionary fear.
Another point we are bound to notice, as error generally diffused—though shocking to just logic. It is said, by way of reproach to ourselves—the England of this day—that we took all the splendid endowments of Oxford, Cambridge, and so forth, from Roman Catholics; which being so, we are bound to make some restoration of the spoils to the Catholics of this day. Was there ever heard more complex absurdity? Mark its stages: