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In fact, last year's bill was an unseemly truck between the plundered spoils of the priesthood, and the restitution of some small portion of the people's civil rights.

After its fortunate miscarriage, a leading member of the boardy seeing well that the greatest obstacle to emancipation was the present manner of appointing bishops in Ireland, moved and got seconded, that no change in the mode of appointing their successors should be made, except by the bishops themselves.

This motion went to throw upon them the odium of refusal in the eyes of government, if they were steady, and of compliance in the mind of the people, if they should submit. Dr. Dromgole feared neither for the judgment or fortitude of the bishops, but he thought unnecessary experiments should be made on neither. He moved, and carried his resolution, against surrendering the government of the Irish church into dangerous hands. This spread unbounded satisfaction throughout the kingdom. Thus were disappointed, at once, the friends of arrangement, and the no popery prints. The former worked off their spleen in angry declamation, the latter dealt out their venom in ill-digested paragraphs. Two of the most unintelligible words in the English language to your tribe of talkers, and superficial thinkers the words illiberal, and intolerant, were hurled at the speaker and the speech. What right had he to speak disrespectfully of the dissenters? To this I answer, that it is the substance we adopt, leaving the detail and minutiae for the amusement and mercy of those who are unable or unwilling to grapple with the work. The proof here against him as in the former case, is that of his opponents ; a partial one, and liable to be suspected. If the feelings of a person who conceives himself injured by a book or a speech, were to be the criterion of its merits, few speeches or books would escape condem

nation.

I now come to the main charge against him-his illiberality and intolerance. The speech condemns an irreligious indifference to any particular form of christianity; it holds that all religions are not equally good, because all are not equally true; it maintains that there is one true belief, exclusively entitled to the preference of christians, Now it happens that the church of England, by its adoption of the Athenean creed, believes as much. If he sins then, he sins in good company. Any particular church, as established in contradiction to the other christian congregations, must held itself exclusively the best. Even the "odious doctrine" of exclusive salvation is asserted as strongly in one of the Thirty-nine Articles as it is by St. Paul himself. If indifference about the creed or form of religion one should profess were admitted, then the great tenet of reformed christians-→ the necessity of discussion--would be condemned. How can a pro. testant call Dr. Dromgole bigoted or illiberal for defending the common faith? If carelessness, as to what one should believe, were a test of liberality, then the most liberal man would be the universal urbeliever, and the best christian the greatest bigot. The absurdity of the consequence involves the absurdity of the premises.

Liberal and illiberal, may, perhaps, be explained by the words charitable and uncharitable. Cannot you comply with the precept of loving your neighbour without approving of his errors? Is your mind to exercise no act of judgment upon a general proposition, lest

his unreasonableness should take offence? Must you contradict your own conviction? must you belie the dictates of your conscience, in complaisance to his absurdities and mistakes? Would not common sense decide it to be more charitable to admonish him of his errors, provided you did it in a becoming way? In my definition, a charitable man is he who does not deny that the neighbour is in error, and approves of his failings, but kindly and good naturedly pities him for not correcting both. A liberal man is he, who has no dislike to you precisely because you are not of the same way of thinking with him. But will charity require of the one to believe against his own knowledge and conscience, that the neighbour is not in error and has not failings? Or will liberality require of the other to admit, against his conviction, that your way of thinking, in which you disagree with him, is as right as his own.

It

This is the pivot of the question; upon this, hinges the entire difficulty. If it be uncharitable in you to suppose or assert, that another person is astray as to his principles of religion, or his particular actions, then fraternal admonition, so far from being a duty, becomes a crime. If christian charity, consists in holding, that no christian sect thinks or acts wrongly, or that all descriptions of christians think and act equally right, then it equalizes, as to value or merit, thoughts, and actions, of the most contradictory character and stamp. But, if such a conclusion is not only blasphemous, inasmuch as it goes to destroy all difference between good and bad, but unphilosophical, as far as it denies to our reasoning faculties any common standard of distinction between truth and falsehood, right and wrong, then it is a consequence to be questioned, that it cannot be uncharitable to suppose or assert the following proposition--there is some one form of the christian re♣ ligion preferable to the rest. In fact, this is the ground-work position, the bottoming principle, the radical, constitutional, elementary assumption of every distinct church, each supposing itself the best. is in virtue of this principle, that it incorporates itself apart, and holds out encouragement to others to come within its communion; for, how could it rationally endeavour to bring over others, unless by promising them better doctrine and better direction than they were in the habit of receiving. That there is some one best mode of christian worship, is true; it is established by the manners and concurrent testimony of all churches, and, when explained, amounts, in fact, to no more than this, that truth is indivisible-that contradictory articles of faith, and opposite maxims of duty, cannot equally square and correspond with the rule of religion given us by HIм who gave all, and, of course, cannot be equally acceptable in his sight. If it be not uncharitable to maintain the superior excellence of some particular form of christian worship, (and it is not, since it is true) how can it be illiberal, unless truth and illiberality be declared synonymous? I know that truth itself can be urged unseasonably-can be maintained unbecomingly, nay, more, can be believed irrationally; that is, when the individual assents without sufficient motives-without taking the necessary time to consider, or, when his passions and his prejudices influence him more than reason; but all this does not alter the nature or essence of truth, which is still one.

Gentlemen, it is painful to my feelings to trespass on your indulgence with those details, which, however accurate in themselves,

fear must be irksome to you; but, before a christian assembly, I amı not ashamed to avow myself a christian, and I recollect whom I address. Should the finger of scorn and reprobation be pointed at any man for holding an opinion, taken up after maturity of deliberation, and upon the most convincing evidence? Ought doctor Dromgole have been assailed by protestants, or abandoned by catholics, for defending the common faith of both? Should he be stigmatized as inintolerant for protecting our common inheritance from profane pillage and invasion? Should be have been denounced, and held forth as un social, for maintaining that no road to happiness is as certain, or as eligible, or as infallible, as that which the great AUTHOR of TRUTHL having condescended, in person, to trace out, must necessarily be one and single. The bigotted man is he, whose passions, or prejudices, or self interest, merely, fastened him to a system or a cause. Intolerable is the controul of mere power over the freedom of religious, opinions; and illiberality is that churlishness, that nigardness of mind, that cannot bear to be dissented from, and insists to be erected as the general standard to which the thinking faculties of others should conform and submit. Are passion and interest the great attracting powers, that have kept you within the orbit of your religion, though centuries of suffering for its belief have not rendered it less lovely to your view, or less endearing to your hearts? Can you be accused of attempting to exercise an unfair controul over the religious opinions of others, whilst you only endeavoured to obtain an exemption from persecution, for practising according to your own? Are you illiberal for not conforming, against your conscience, to the belief of others, who not only will not conform, with, but are hostile upon principle, to yours? If you are not only guilty in fact, can you be injured by these odious, and, generally, misunderstood imputations? If, to avoid the false shame of accompanying a false charge, you ought to disavow your principles, then, constancy to the truth is not a virtue, and your cause had long ceased in Ireland.

Gentlemen, is not that man, who is oppressed for his advocacy of an interest in which we all participate, alike entitled to some measure of that friendship which we all can offer? I know it will be asked, why have not his claims, which, in the present instance, are the claims of truth, been offered to the consideration of other counties!—Arę que basely to linger hindermost in the race of generosity, and, instead of giving, as we are accustomed, wait to take the tone of public duty from other countries? We owe it to ourselves, and to the dignity of the catholic name, to put forth a public document of our conviction as to the merits of the case, upon which doctor Dromgole has been so unfairly arraigned, and so unjustly sentenced. Yes, gentlemen, he was convicted of being a Roman Catholic; he was found guilty of the atrocious crime of being an Irishman, because he ventured, imitating your endeavours in the years 1808 and 1810, to rescue from destruction the only unplundered monument of your former existence as a people! The only distinctive mark of nationality we still retain, is the ancient and independent mode of appointing our clergy, as now observed, This venerable relic of antiquity, points to some brighter period of our country's independence, and excites future hopes, by making our thoughts wander in melancholy, but proud and dignified retrospect to the past. The Union made us a province, a Veto on

the the nomination of our clergy would make us an English People! Surely, it was not sacrilegious to stretch out one's hand, and attempt to save from the wreck, at least in the memory of the vessel, the last Boating fragment of national honour, and national existence, that had not been smitten by the tempest, or washed away by the tide.

Our claims are soon to undergo parliamentary discussion. Your assent to the resolution, which I support, will let all those, whom it may concern, know the terms on which you wish to be delivered from a bondage, not so degrading as that sort of liberty with which last year's bill of pledges and securities would insult and afflict you. Dr. Dromgole, as a catholic and an Irishman, condemning that bill. Let him, therefore, receive the grateful tribute of your sympathy and ap probation.

Resolved-That we re-adopt our resolutions of the years 1808 and 1810, against any right or interference to be vested in the crown in the appointment of our clergy, as these resolutions have been set forth in a speech delivered at the catholic board by doctor Dromgole, the substance of which we approve of and adopt.

Resolved-That our thanks are eminently due, and are hereby given, to the virtuous minority on counsellor M'Donnel's motion, for rescinding the vote of censure, passed by the Catholic Board on Dr. Dromgole's speech.

EXTRACT

FROM THE SPEECH OF

MR. M'DOWELL,

To the Historical Society, at Belfast,
IRELAND.

History presents us with one noble exception to the idea that commercial and literary pursuits are incompatible. One whose situation in early life, not only approximated to that of the members of this society, but who was himself also the founder of many institutions similar to our own; one who, if we cannot hope to equal, let us at least endeavour to initate, and we will find him a model worthy of

our imitation. I mean the great FRANKLIN; him we behold in his youth, engaged in laborious employments, to which he paid the most assiduous attention, yet he still found leisure to cultivate his mind, and enlarge his understanding. By his close and industrious attention to business, he realized a handsome and independent fortune; by his cccasional attention to mental and literary pursuits, he raised himself to the first eminence in society. When the columns and busts erected to those whose only merit was their superior knowledge in the art of butchering and slaughtering mankind, have mouldered into dust, the name of Franklin will be handed down from age to age, while memory holds a seat; associated with an era of the erection of a great empire, and the establishment of a government founded on the purest principles of liberty and justice.

(After touching on several subjects, and alluding to the liberality of the society, which excluded no man, on account of his religious or political opinion, the speaker concluded in the following words :)

Her sons (the sons of Ireland) seek in literature a substitute for liberty; and raise, in historical and debating societies, an altar to keep alive that sacred fire which narrowly escaped extinction with their arliament.

EXTRACT

FROM THE SPEECH OF

MR. CURRAN, ·

Delivered at a public dinner in London, on the occasion of his health being drank.

I come from a country which has no liberty to be proud of, and if I go back to it, it will be as to the waters of Babylon-to weep. You have been pleased, however, to give one toast-the cause of civil and religious liberty all the world over. When you drank the toast, I felt my heart embrace the negro-I felt also that it sympathized with my own poor country. Ireland, if it heard that toast, would bless that generous prospect of yours, from which alone can grow our human existence. I am enthusiastic for my countrymen, but my enthusiasm for them is not surprising-my youth has been spent amongst them; my sympathy has been stretched for them; I might have sold myself at the market of corruption, and grown into pride, and wealth, and remorse, at their expense; but I preferred to stay below with them in their humiliation--to mourn their condition--to defend them if I could-to chide and rebuke them when a bold friend ought to do so. On their behalf I thank you for the generous sympa thy which has dictated that toast. You will not find them unworthy coadjutors in the vineyard of liberty,

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