unteracting Mr. O'Connell's
statements and opinions on this subject, at least publicly, gave way to
the wildest hopes and aspirations of papal ascendancy in England,
and ultimately, through English instrumentality, in the colonies. The
ecclesiastical titles bill called forth the most malignant denunciations
of Lord John Russell, politically and personally; the house of Bedford
was singled out from the aristocracy of England for vehement abuse; a
wild controversy raged through the land; sermons against Protestantism,
remarkable for the absence of all argument such as the Roman Catholic
priests of the old school prided themselves on using, and pervaded by a
fierce fanaticism, were delivered throughout the country; and all reply
on the part of Protestant clergymen were treated not as theological
arguments, but as insults, which disturbed the public peace, and
constituted a peculiar "Catholic grievance." Many Protestants in Ireland
countenanced this feeling; controversy and proselyteism, on the part of
the Church of Rome, were by such Protestants held up as a proof of
Roman Catholic zeal. Controversy and proselyteism on the part of the
Protestant clergy were denounced as proofs of clerical imprudence,
an attack on the "rights" of Roman Catholics, and a proof of some
connection, open or covert, with Orangemen. This description of feeling
amongst certain classes of Protestants in the higher ranks in England
and Ireland was fashionable, but the honest zeal of the middle and
poorer classes of Protestants restrained its manifestation. The columns
of the Roman Catholic newspapers, and the sermons of the priests,
during 1851, in Ireland, furnished extraordinary specimens of vindictive
fanaticism.

Although public disturbances and assassinations were less common in 1851
than was usual in Ireland, there were some heartless proofs of class and
religious animosity. In the month of July a singular trial took
place evincing this. A gentleman named Smyth, of landed property, and
considerable influence in his county, was, with one Helier, put upon his
trial for the murder of his own mother, for the purpose of inheriting
her property. Witnesses were called who swore to complicity, or a
knowledge of complicity on the part of others, in a conspiracy, in which
Mr. Blood Smyth was the moving person, for the murder of his mother.
The evidence of these persons revealed a state of moral feeling, in
the south of Ireland, among the peasant and low