ed by those countries where the great principle of
religious liberty has come, at length, to be fully understood. It was a
great day for the united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, when the
legal disabilities which weighed so long on the Catholic people, were
removed. It was the noble and powerful protest of a mighty empire against
the narrow and irrational spirit of persecution, which still disgraces so
many of the European nations. If ever the Catholics, by superiority of
numbers, which is far from being an impossible state of things, should
come to sway the destinies of that empire, the glorious fact will be
remembered and bear its fruit. England, Ireland and Scotland, already
enjoy an abundant measure of their reward, in the increase of piety and of
that righteousness which exalteth a nation. This is manifest in many ways.
It is particularly shown forth by the more friendly feeling towards the
Catholics of the empire which now universally prevails. We may not be
supposed to know much, here in Canada, about the state of sentiment or
opinion in England. But when we appeal to the testimony of so eminent an
Englishman as Cardinal Newman, what we affirm cannot be easily gainsaid.
In a discourse recently delivered at Birmingham, on the growth of the
Catholic Church in England, the very learned cardinal noted the striking
contrast between the feeling towards Catholics in Cardinal Wiseman's time
and that of the present day, and accounted for the improvement by showing
that there is now a much better knowledge of the Catholic religion among
Protestants. "What I wish to show," said his Eminence, "and what I believe
to be the remarkable fact is, that whereas there have been many
conversions to the Catholic Church during the last thirty years, and a
great deal of ill-will felt towards us, in consequence, nevertheless, that
ill-will has been overcome, and a feeling of positive good-will has been
created instead in the minds of our very enemies, by means of those
conversions which they feared from their hatred of us. How this was, let
me now say: The Catholics in England, fifty years ago, were an unknown
sect amongst us. Now there is hardly a family but has brothers or sisters,
or cousins or connections, or friends and acquaintances, or associates in
business or work, of that religion, not to mention the large influx of
population from the sister island: and such an interpenetration of
Catholics with Protestants, especially in