ir vanity to shew that
they have the Irish representation in their own hands, and though their
worldly interest and that of their connections will, they know,
immediately profit by that dominion, what they look for principally is
the advancement of their religion at the cost of Protestantism; that
would bring everything else in its train. While it is obvious that the
political agitators could not rouse the people without the intervention
of the priests, it is true that the priests could not excite the people
without a hope that from the exaltation of their Church their social
condition would be improved. What in Irish interpretation these words
would mean we may tremble to think of.

In whatever way we look, religion is so much mixed up in this matter,
that the guardians of the Episcopal Church of the Empire are imperiously
called upon to show themselves worthy of the high trust reposed in them.
You, my Lord, are convinced that, in spite of the best securities that
can be given, the admission of Roman Catholics into the Legislature is a
dangerous experiment. Oaths cannot be framed that will avail here; the
only securities to be relied upon are what we have little hope to
see--the Roman Church reforming itself, and a Ministry and a Parliament
sufficiently sensible of the superiority of the one form of religion
over the other to be resolved, not only to preserve the present rights
and immunities of the Protestant Church inviolate, but prepared by all
fair means for the extension of its influence, with a hope that it may
gradually prevail over Papacy.

It is, we trust, the intention of Providence that the Church of Rome
should in due time disappear; and come what may on the Church of
England, we have the satisfaction of knowing that in defending a
Government resting upon a Protestant basis--say what they will, the
other party have abandoned--we are working for the welfare of humankind,
and supporting whatever there is of dignity in our frail nature.

Here I might stop; but I am above measure anxious for the course which
the bench of bishops may take at this crisis. They are appealed to, and
even by the Heir Presumptive to the throne from his seat in Parliament.
There will be attempts to brow-beat them on the score of humanity; but
humanity is, if it deserves the name, a calculating and prospective
quality; it will on this occasion balance an evil at hand with a far
greater one that is sure, or all but sure, to come. Huma