r Robert Inglis _christened_ this
odious measure, a 'gigantic scheme of godless education,' and a large
majority of Irish Roman Catholic Prelates have solemnly pronounced it
'dangerous to faith and morals.' Neither ministerial allurements, nor
ministerial threats can subdue the cantankerous spirit of these bigots.
They are all but frantic and certainly not without reason, for the Irish
Colleges' Bill is the fine point of that wedge which, driven home, will
shiver to pieces their 'wicked political system.' Whatever improves
Irish intellect will play the mischief with its 'faith,' though not at
all likely to deteriorate its 'morals.' Let the people of Ireland be
well employed as a preliminary to being well educated, and speedily they
may _deserve_ to be singled out as 'the most moral people on the face of
the earth.'

An educated nation will never tamely submit to be priest-ridden, and
well do Ireland's enslavers know it. The most stupid of her priests,
equally with the shrewdest of her 'patriots,' are quite alive to the
expediency of teaching as fact the fraudulent fables of the 'dark ages.'
To keep the people ignorant, or what is worse, to teach them only what
is false, is the great end of _their_ training; and if a British
ministry propose anything better than the merest mockery of education,
they call it 'dangerous to faith and morals.'

Superstition is the curse of Ireland. To the rival churches of that
country may be traced ALL the oppressions suffered by its people who
never can be materially improved till purged of their faith in priests.
When that salutary work shall be accomplished, Ireland will indeed be 'a
nation' in the secure enjoyment of political liberty. The priest-ridden
may talk of freedom, but can never secure it.

What then can be thought of the first-rate reformers, before alluded to,
who are going to emancipate every body without the least offence to any
body's superstition? It should be borne in memory that other people are
superstitious as well as the Irish, and that the churches of all
countries are as much parts of 'a wicked political system' as are the
churches of Ireland.

The judges of _our_ country frequently remind us that its laws have a
religious sanction; nay, they assure us Christianity is part and parcel
of those laws. Do we not know that orthodox Christianity means
Christianity as by law established? And can any one fail to perceive
that such a religion must needs be political? Th