, he was sure of
one in the parish priest. Now this fact is decisive upon the merits of
Maynooth. It matters not what latitude may be allowed to variety of
political views; no politics of _any_ sort can be regarded as becoming to
a village pastor. But allow him to be a politician, how could a priest
become a tool without ruin to his spiritual character? Yet this is the
Maynooth, training its _alumni_ to two duties, the special duty of living
_in procinctu_ and in harness for every assault upon the Protestant
establishment of their country, and for the unlimited duty of taking
orders in any direction from Mr O'Connell--this is the Maynooth to which,
for such merits, we have been paying nine thousand pounds annually for
exactly fifty years, and are now required to pay three times as much for
ever.

But from these narrower questions, directed to circumstantialities local
and transitory, we wish to draw the reader's attention upon certain other
questions larger and more philosophic. And, first of all, let us say a
word upon one point continually raised, and not at all limited to Irish
cases; viz. the latitude allowed by conscience to a Protestant in
promoting the welfare of Papists, where it happens that the personal
service is associated unavoidably with some service to the Popish cause.
As individuals, or even as a collective body in the commonwealth, every
liberal man would wish to protect and to favour his Catholic
fellow-citizens, if he could do so without aiding them in their natural
purpose of making proselytes. There are cases undoubtedly in which these
mixed advantages for the person and for the creed would so blend as to
offer a difficult problem in casuistry to a delicate conscience. Sir
Robert Peel in the final debate on the second reading of the Maynooth
bill, attempted to throw dust in the eyes of the House upon the principle
concerned in cases of this nature; and even if he had been right in his
argument, we believe that he would have gained little for the particular
question concerned in the Maynooth grant. He argued, by way of showing how
untenable was the notion that we could not conscientiously support a
religion which we believed erroneous, that upon that hypothesis we should
cut the ground from below our feet in the mode of supporting our own
religion. The law of England insists upon the Dissenters paying
church-rates and tithes to the English church; now, argued Sir Robert, the
Dissenter might turn rou