communicated to their exertions.

The following is a copy of the papal rescript, addressed to the Roman
Catholic prelates of Ireland:--

"_Most Illustrious and Reverend Lord_,--The reports now for nine
months circulated by the English newspapers concerning the political
party-strifes in which some ecclesiatics have allowed themselves to be
carried away, and the desecration made of some of the Irish churches for
the purpose of aiding and promoting secular concerns--nay, more, the
reports which have reached us relative to the murders which we are
informed are so frequent, and by reason of which the clergy have been
stigmatised, and some of them charged with imprudence, and as giving
indirect provocation from the pulpit, or, at least, extenuating the
guilt of these murders--these reports must surely awaken the solicitude
of the sacred congregation.

"This sacred congregation cannot bring itself to believe that such
reports, so extensively raised abroad, can be true; nor can it believe
that ecclesiastics have forgotten that the church of God should be
the house of prayer, not of secular concerns, or the meeting-place
of politicians; neither can the sacred congregation believe that
ecclesiastics have ceased to recollect that they are the ministers of
peace, dispensers of the mysteries of God--men who should not involve
themselves in worldly concerns--in a word, men who should abhor blood
and vengeance. Nevertheless, this sacred congregation deems it its duty
to require certain and satisfactory explanation on all these matters,
that it may know what importance to attach to the abovementioned
damnatory reports. Wherefore, at the suggestion of his holiness, I have
deemed it my duty to forward this letter to your lordship, praying you
to satisfy this most reasonable solicitude of the congregation; and,
meantime, it exhorts you to admonish the clergy, that seeking the things
which are of Jesus Christ, they sedulously apply themselves to watch
over the spiritual interests of the people, and in nowise mix themselves
up with worldly affairs, in order that their ministry may not be brought
into disrepute, and those who are against them may not have wherewith to
charge them.

"I pray God long to preserve your lordship.

"J. Ph. Cardinal Fransoni.

"Rome. From the Congregation of the Faith,

"January 3rd, 1848."

Early in the year the legislature passed stringent laws to suppress
crime and outrage in Ireland, and to bring