ritual knowledge]--Rome is likely (as
we shall soon argue) to take a prodigious bound forward. And if, on the
other hand, any great fermentation of truth _should_ commence in the
Popish church of Ireland, and that a vacuum should thus be created, into
which the priests could no longer carry their minstrations acceptably,
that vacuum would be instantly filled by zealous Protestants. Such a
change would be so far from leaving any part of the Irish poor denuded of
spiritual aid, or in any way exposed to the risk of infidelity, (according
to the objection,) that Protestant help would arise (we are well assured)
in a ratio more than corresponding to a necessity that must naturally have
been gradual in its development. And thus it would appear--that, by
strengthening Maynooth, Government, so far from protecting the people
against the chances of infidelity, would (in the case supposed) have been
intercepting the fair chances of our own Protestant missions. Besides,
that (according to a constant reproach of our antagonists, which they must
not be allowed to forget exactly when it furnishes an argument
inconvenient to themselves,) the _regular_ clergy of the Irish Protestant
establishment, having churches (as they insist) without congregations,
will always compose a staff large enough to intercept any possible
expansion of infidelity that could attend the declension of Popery through
one generation at the least. Fully agreeing, therefore, that Popery is a
blessing to Ireland by comparison with any risk of no religion at all, we
deny firmly that she exposed to such a risk. And if unhappily she were, a
most Irish mode of averting that risk it would be--to fortify the claims
of Maynooth, that last asylum of unhallowed and fraudulent casuistry, a
casuistry which, like the traditions of the Scribes and Pharisees, makes
void the pure law of God.

But a more cogent objection at first sight to us, the opposers of the
Maynooth grant, seems this: "In 1796 your party it was that originally
proposed and founded any grant at all. If it was right then, it is right
now. And, as to the increase from nine thousand pounds _per annum_ to
twenty-six thousand, that is a consideration for accountants rather than
for statesmen; the sum cannot affect the principle."

Here are our answers; for there are more points to answer than one.

_First_, It is not true, or near to being true, that the sum at issue
could not affect the principle concerned. Many a