made the Protestants of Ireland her garrison, upholding them in return in an ascendancy which made the political position of Protestantism odious, not because it was Protestant, but because it was anti-Irish. I believe there is less of hatred of

no country on earth in which there is others on religious grounds than that which exists in Ireland. I apply the observation chiefly to Roman Catholic Ireland. The long struggle for their own freedom-a struggle in which they appealed to the great principles of civil and religious liberty, the lessons in these principles which were made immortal in the eloquence of Grattan and of Curran— which were branded on the Irish soul in the burning words of O'Connell,* have impressed upon the Catholic people of Ireland a spirit of liberality and toleration in which they will bear comparison with their co-religionists in any European country. If fiery hatreds ever range themselves under the banner of religious difference, they are hatreds not of any faith or creed, but of the ascendancy with which the people believe themselves to have been trampled down.

In no country in the world when once the idea of religious ascendancy is exterminated, has the intermingling of. Protestants and Catholics ever marred the vigour or the unity of a nation. It is strange, indeed, that those countries who show most union and energy are those in which diversity of religious faith prevails. History records nothing like the power and the energy with which Germany has moulded together her populations professing as they do different creeds. King

* Let me say it with melancholy reverence for his memory, Protestant Ireland has never, in this respect, done justice to this great Irishman. No man ever lived more opposed to religious intolerance-no man would more strenuously have opposed any sectarian ascendancy, or any attempt at political dictation by any spiritual power. No misrepresentation of his character could be more unjust than that which would describe him as the slave of prejudice or bigotry, or the servile adherent of ecclesiastical

rule.

William, in his North German army, is leading, at least, as many Catholic as Protestant soldiers to the field. In the American Republic, and in that of Switzerland, there is a similar division of religious faith-so there is in Belgium. In France there is a numerous Protestant population; and so little does religious prejudice prevail, that a Protestant prime minister of France enjoyed in our time the longest tenure of power. Similar results have followed-indeed, they preceded -the establishment of free constitutions in Austria and Hungary. In Saxony a Catholic sovereign reigns in the hearts of his Protestant people. It is only when a religious ascendancy is attempted that religious differences become the source of national weakness and national dissensions. It is political intrigue that degrades religion into strife.

So far from believing the differences of religion which exist in Ireland to be any hindrance to our discharging the highest functions of a nation, I am persuaded that even in our very dissensions there has been a training which will give Ireland a power which no nation of one creed could possess. Ireland -Presbyterian, Episcopal, and Catholic-will attract to her sympathies, which a nation composed exclusively of one denomination never could command. The very strength of each class will prohibit and drive away the thoughts of the domination of any other. The lesson which has been taught in the overthrow of the Protestant establishment will not be lost on any section of the Irish nation. The presence of another section of Christians will be equally a check upon the negli gence and the intolerance of each church; and in the necessity imposed on us of mutually respecting the opinions of each other Ireland will learn the great lesson of that toleration, without observing which no nation can ever be really great. Even in our religious differences-in the fact that we have within our borders three great Christian communities, each strong in its intellect, in the social position of its members,

and in its numbers, I see a preparation for the part which it is the destiny of Ireland to take in the history of the world, and an earnest that no narrow or illiberal prejudices will disqualify her from filling it.

I need scarcely say that the views expressed in this chapter are very remotely, if at all, involved in the discussion of the question of a Federal Constitution for Ireland. They prove nothing but the perfect faith I myself have in the fitness of self-government, in union with England, to do full justice to our national life. Men may reject those views as altogether visionary, and yet yield to the force of the practical considerations which establish the necessity of domestic government for Ireland. I am conscious, indeed, that to many the words I have written on this subject will appear only to record the visions of a dreamer. Yet to those who have accustomed themselves to study thoughtfully the signs of the tendencies which irresistibly control human affairs I do not fear to submit them as the words of soberness and truth.

The time may be far distant when they can be judged by the practical test of actual events. That time may not come until the writer of them is long forgotten in the dust. He whose hopes and thoughts for his country could be limited to the narrow span of his own life would not be worthy to hope or think for her at all.

Long years may pass away, and many generations go to their rest before the destiny of Ireland is completely fulfilled. Years in the life of nations are as days. Yet we live in times when events succeed each other with a rapidity that crowds history into a brief space. No one can say that, even in the

years of this generation, events may not occur which will call on Ireland to bear in the history of mankind a place for which God has designed her. Sure I am that a very few years of self-government will exhibit in her people qualities, and virtues, and energies which, long obscured and even perverted as they have been by slavery and oppression, will prove for Ireland her fitness for the noblest destiny that has ever been foreseen for her.

At all events I would not do justice to my own thoughtsI would fail to speak to the hearts of thousands and tens of thousands who believe, and feel, and hope as I do, if, even in these pages of practical and business-like discussion I did not leave the record of our faith in our country's future. Most assuredly they have been written with no wavering in that faith. The proposals they contain are made with no faltering confidence in that country's highest and most glorious hopes.

APPENDIX.

DEAR SIR,

LISDOONVARNA, October 10, 1870.

I thank you for your pamphlet on Federalism. I have read it with much interest, and, I may add, with desire to see my way to joining the movement you have so ably inaugurated for Ireland.

The recent violation of the fundamental condition of the Act of Union by the disestablishment of the Church removes what might otherwise have been, with a member of the Protestant establishment, an objection to moving for its repeal; but now the Protestants of Ireland are as free as the Roman Catholics always have been to do so.

You have, in your pamphlet, very justly noticed how totally the Union has failed to produce the benefits that were promised from it, and your remarks are but too plainly borne out both by the extent to which disaffection prevails in Ireland, and by her deplorably backward condition, so different from the marked advancement of the sister country, in education, wealth, and all that conduces to national prosperity and contentment. If the comparison is humiliating to Irishmen it is also discreditable to the government of the United Kingdom; for whatever other circumstances may have contributed to produce it, there is one fact that might alone be quite sufficient to account for the contrast between the two countries-it is that whereas England has the advantage of being governed by those who are intimately acquainted with her interests, and practically responsible to her for attending to them, Ireland is powerless to obtain for her interests the attention they need from ministers who commonly