ly attached to her nationalism, and more than ever potent to
influence all newcomers with her national ideas.

It is in that sense that the question of race still remains a
permanent feature in the Irish problem. It is precisely because the
Irish nationality is so persistent that it is hopeless to expect a
permanent settlement of her government problem within the scope of such
an iron uniformity as the Act of Union. It is because Ireland nurses
this "unconquerable hope" that the only golden key to these
difficulties lies in some form of self-government.

THE CREED

But besides the sea and the race, there is yet one more feature of the
Irish problem which remains practically unchanged. Ireland still
remains predominantly Catholic, while Great Britain is still
predominantly Protestant. The great movement of the sixteenth century,
known as the Reformation, passed from Germany through Holland and
France into Great Britain. It won Scotland completely. In England,
after a prolonged struggle with a powerful Catholic tradition, it ended
in the compromise still represented by the Anglican Church. But there
the victory of the Reformation closed. The movement was checked at St.
George's Channel. In Ireland Catholicism stood with its back against
the Atlantic, and fought a stern, long fight against all the political
and social forces of the British Empire. The attack of Protestantism
was supported by the full power and authority of the conqueror. It
lasted for two centuries. It began with Elizabeth and James as a simple
imperative, mercilessly applied without regard to national conditions.
It came under Cromwell as a scorching, devastating flame. It remained
under William and the Georges as a slow, cruel torture applied through
all the avenues of the law. The end of all that effort was, not to
convert or destroy, but to weld the national and religious spirits
into one common force, acting together throughout the nineteenth
century as if identical.

Purified by persecution, Catholicism in Ireland, almost alone among the
religions of Western Europe, stands out still to-day as a great
national and democratic force.

But though the persecution failed, it built up, by a double process of
immigration and monopoly, a very powerful Protestant population with
all the stiff pride of ascendancy. For generations the Protestants of
Ireland enjoyed all the offices of government, and had the sole right
of inheritance. Thus both the land a