except those of Lord Chancellor and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; but to qualify themselves for these privileges they were to be compelled to take an oath repugnant to the feelings of every honest and independent mind, and degrading and insulting to their religion and fealty to the state. The fourth clause permitted them to become members of lay corporate bodies; but excluded them from holding any office in ecclesiastical courts or the univer sities.So far little or no objection could be made, except to the nature and form of the oath, which, from the jealous and suspicious manner in which it was worded, reflected disgrace upon its authors, and would most probably have been refused by every conscientious Catholic. After the bill, however, had been introduced into the House, two safe politicians, my Lord Castlereagh and Mr. George Canning, did not consider the Protestant episcopal Church of England and the Pro❤ testant presbyterian Church of Scotland sufficiently secured from the dangers of Popery, although the pream

RETROSPECT OF CATHOLIC AFFAIRS. N commencing the fourth volume of my literary pursuits, I am induced to lay before my readers a short retrospect of the most important circumstances which have occurred within the last three years, so far as they regard the Catholics of the united kingdom. This I consider necessary for the information of those who are not in the possession, or who may not have seen, the whole of my work; and it will also be useful to such as have subscribed from the beginning, by refreshing their memories, at a time of peculiar interest to them. In fact, the Catholic cannot be too often told, nor can his mind be too well informed, of the events which have passed before him, in order that he may be the better able to form his opinion, and thus be prepared to give his decision, on the great and momentous measures connected with the safety of his holy religion and the enjoyment of his civil privileges, which the present year will in all probability produce. Acting under this impression, I shall now proceed to give a short history of Ca-ble of the bill declared them both to tholic affairs from the year 1813. In the parliamentary session of that year, the House of Commons having ordered a Committee to prepare a bill for the relief of the Roman Catholic inhabitants of this empire, after considerable consultation and delay, the same was produced and brought into the House. By the first and second clauses of the bill, Catholics were to be allowed to sit in Parliament and to enjoy all civil and military offices, ORTHOD. JOUR. VOL IV.

be established "permanently and inviolably," unless the hands of the Guardians of the Catholic Church were handcuffed, and their nails pared down a little closer, for fear the pales of the two Protestant episcopal and non-episcopal sister churches should be endangered by them. Accordingly these two renowned statesmen added a few clauses, which subjected the Catholic Clergy to an inquisition more grinding than the tyrrany of the Star

B

Chamber. By one clause it was insi- | out the schismatical and unconstitu,

nuated that some of them might be so
illiterate as to be unable to write their
own names; and by others they were
liable to be transported out of the
country, without a trial, for the mere
exercise of their spiritual functions,
unless they had been previously ap-
proved of by lay-statesmen. A Board
of laymen, Protestants and Catholics,
was likewise to be formed for the in-
quisitorial purpose of deciding upon
the loyalty of the candidates for epis-
copal orders, and of inspecting the
correspondence which should take
place between the Head of the Church
and its ministers in this kingdom.
Notwithstanding the unconstitutional,
the grinding, the degrading tendency
of these clauses towards the sacred
and venerable order of the Clergy, I
shall not easily forget the eager joy,
the childish anticipations, which
beamed in the eyes, and gladdened the
hearts of the leaders of the self-named
Board of British Catholics, at the
delightful prospect of being speedily
admitted to the long-covetted privi-
leges of the Constitution. Yes, rea-
der, they foolishly hoped themselves
up with the vain idea that their cares
were soon to be at an end, and so be-
wildered were they with the thoughts
of their own temporal views of hap.
piness, that they willingly left the
ministers of their religion to the mercy
of its declared enemies. But, like the
poor woman who counted of her
chickens before they were hatched,
these gentlemen were doomed to ex-
perience a like disappointment; a vote
of Parliament dashed from their lips
the cup
of gladness, and from "Cara-
liers of joyful anticipation," they were
transformed into "Knights of the woe-
ful countenance."- In a word, the
Right Rev. Dr. Milner, with that zeal
and vigilance which have always dis-
tinguished his public career, aware of
the evil nature of the obnoxious eccle-
siastical clauses, caused a memorial
to be circulated on the evening_pre-
vious to the House going into a Com-
mittee on the Bill, in which he pointed

tional tendency of its operations, and proved that instead of allaying religious jealousies among the people, the bill was calculated to create greater animosity and confusion between them. This, added to the prejudices and bigotry of some of the leading members, caused the first clause of the bill to be rejected by a small majority, on the 24th of May, on which occasion its friends withdrew the whole. As soon as the dangerous nature of the bill was made known to the Irish Prelates, they assembled in synod at Dublin, and published a pastoral address to their respective flocks, dated the 26th of May, in which they formally condemned it as schismatical, and declared the ecclesiastical clauses therein contained "to be utterly incompatible with the discipline of the Roman Catholic church, and with the free exercise of our religion.”—On the 29th of the same month, a meeting was held of the self-named Board in London, at which the premier Eart of England presided.—At this assembly, the members present, anxious to shew the orthodoxy of their faith, and the acuteness of their feelings at the disappointment they had just ́experienced, thought proper not only to thank in the most ceremonious manner the framers and supporters of a schismatical and unconstitutional bill, but also personally to insult and publicly to attempt to vilify the character and conduct of Dr. Milner, for his conscientious opposition to this degrading measure of relief to the Catholics of this kingdom.- Resolutions therefore to this effect were published in the London papers, under the signature of "SHREWSBURY, Chairman;" but admire, reader, and adore the wisdom of Providence. On the very day, probably at the same moment, that these degenerate men were discharging their spleen against an incorruptible prelate of their church; on the same day that a self-created Board of lay Catholics vainly hoped to degrade the learned Bishop in the