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stock are equally congenial with the soil on which they grow. Taught to cherish the most extravagant notions of sacerdotal power, the sanctity of the clerical office serves, in the mind of the young Priest, to cover a multitude of sins. He knows that in former times the clergy were not amenable to human tribunals, and he believes that, were society in a proper state, it would be so still. Accustomed from infancy to rely on the form of godliness without the power-to rest upon the overt act, apart from the inward feeling—to attribute a mysterious virtue to the opus operatum of the church; exulting in the possession of prerogatives on which so many are implicitly depending for everlasting life, it is natural that he should cherish an overweening self-conceit, and an overbearing arrogance-that he should assume a tone of authority and dogmatism, which are most unfriendly to the impartial examination of evidence, especially of evidence militating against this intoxicating power. In Maynooth he has seen nothing of Protestantism but its hideous caricature, the impure and bloody phantom of a monkish imagination. Against this phantom he has been wielding for years his logical weapons. When let loose from college, he desists from the Quixotic warfare, not from satiety of bigotry, but from mere lassi

tude of mind. Thus, the light which is in him is darkness, and how great must be that darkness! Learning has exerted all its ingenuity to blind and bar the inlets of knowledge. Superstition has long possessed the fortress of the soul, and sophistry has been daily thickening the texture and multiplying the folds of that net in which the captive, Reason, has fruitlessly struggled.

When the Priest commences his official duties, a new scene opens. He is excited by the novelty, the piquant curiosity, and the powerful interest that encircle the confessional. The secrets

which are there, in loneliness and silence, whispered into his ear, become the subjects of his daily lucubrations and his nocturnal visions. Were he at liberty to divulge them, even to a confidential companion, they would not haunt him so perpetually, nor stimulate his imagination so injuriously. But there is incessantly passing through his mind a stream of impurity, which is retained, fetid and foul as it is, in the reservoir of memory; which is, alas, but too tenacious of evil! and from this reservoir imagination draws its food, and re-produces, with many additions, the delectable banquet!

He is, besides, occupied with a perpetual round of confessions, masses, marriages, christenings, anointings, visiting, feasting, office and

THEIR POLITICS.

91

newspaper reading, so that there is scarcely any time for serious reflection. And even if there were, does not a slight knowledge of human nature teach us that man eagerly catches at any excuse for avoiding painful reflection, especially when conscience seizes the opportunity to urge the renunciation of interest, pleasure, or power! Thus we see that every thing from within conspires to keep the Priests in error.

And the most superficial observation will show, that the causes that operate from without are all of a similar tendency. Shunned by Protestants, as the enemy of truth; violently assailed, and sometimes grossly misrepresented by political partizans and religious zealots, he fiercely retaliates, and throws back the missiles of abuse with a degree of energy which shews he is not to be put down. He is thrown on his defence. He deems himself the champion of a degraded people and a persecuted church. And the keen sense of neglect, of contempt and insult, with which he is almost universally treated by his Protestant neighbours, infuses no small portion of bitterness into his opposition to the Established Church. It is natural to us to hate those by whom we are despised. In all the attempts to reclaim the Roman Catholic people, the Priests are strangely overlooked. No efforts to conciliate them have ever

been put forth by the religious portion of the Protestant community. They have been treated rather as demons than as men. We have forgotten that they are possessed of like passions with ourselves; that while they are alienated and exasperated by harsh and violent attacks on their faith and their moral character, they may be won by Christian courtesy, friendly intercourse, and the cordial expression of kind and charitable feelings. Should we not make allowance for the influence of circumstances? Could they be expected, in the nature of things, to cherish towards Protestants other sentiments than those by which they are actuated? Clergymen of the Church of England almost invariably shrink from contact with a Priest, and if compelled to transact public business in connexion with him, they eye him with an air of superiority and supercilious jealousy, which must be exceeding irritating, and is often, in fact, strongly resented. They never meet him at the social board. This would be deemed a dereliction of principle; it would be thought a "bidding him. God speed," and giving their sanction to his ministerial character. Were an evangelical minister seen walking in the street, leaning on the arm of a Priest, though endeavouring to convince him of his errors, his character would be ruined.

THEIR TREATMENT.

93.

Now, if religion be allowed to operate as a barrier in the way of properly regulated social intercourse, much of its power of propagation is thereby destroyed. An early apologist for Christianity declared, that its converts were found in vast numbers in all departments of the empire; and that they abounded even in the army. They must then have mingled freely with the Pagan population; and, indeed, it was by thus carrying the principles and the spirit of the Gospel into the intimacies of social life, that they were enabled so effectually to leaven the whole mass. else can example, the most intelligible and powerful of teachers, be brought to bear on the world in which we move? It is in vain that our light shines under the bushel of sectarianism, or within those high frowning walls of exclusiveness which we have reared up around

us.

How

Nothing, I am persuaded, more powerfully dissipates prejudice, than the light of a holy example. Of this I had ample proofs in my own experience. Circumstances brought me acquainted with two or three clergyman of the Church of England, whose domestic habits and family, arrangements I had an opportunity of observing; and I can truly affirm, that the picture of peace, and order, and purity, which they presented, did

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