5. By the fifth section, persons being or becoming members of unlawful societies, are declared guilty of misdemeanour, and punishable by fine and imprisonment.

6. By the sixth section, persons who cease to be members of unlawful societies upon knowing that they are unlawful, are exempted from punishment.

7. By the seventh section, persons in whose houses unlawful societies meet, to pay five pounds for the first offence, and be deemed guilty of unlawful confederacy and conspiracy.

8. The act not to affect societies for religious or charitable purposes, or merely for the purposes of science, agriculture, manufactures, or commerce.

9. The ninth section provides that "nothing herein contained shall be deemed or construed in any manner to prevent or impede the undoubted right of his Majesty's subjects to petition his Majesty, or both Houses, or either House of Parliament, for the redress of any public or private grievance, or to assemble for that purpose; or to prevent the appointment of any committee for the sole purpose of preparing or forwarding any such petition; provided that such committee shall not exceed the number of twenty persons, and shall not have power to appoint any other committee; and that such assembly or committee shall not have continuance by adjournment or otherwise for any period exceeding fourteen days from the time of such first assembling or appointment respectively; and shall not collect or receive any money or contribution from any of his Majesty's subjects other than such as may be necessary for the specific purposes of preparing and transmitting to the King, or either House of Parliament, such petition as aforesaid.

10. The tenth section enacts that all actions brought in consequence of any thing done under this act shall be brought within three months, and in the county where the fact was commit

ted; that the general issue and the penalties of the act may be pleaded, and that in the event of judgment for the defendant, he shall have double costs.

11 and 12. Section 11 provides for the operation of the act during the session; and Section 12 provides that it shall commence within ten days after the passing (19th March) and continue for two years, and to the end of the then next session of Parliament.

While the Catholic Association bill was pending in Parliament, the lay and plebeian members of the deputation were not inactive out of doors. Messrs O'Connel and Sheil, on finding that they were not permitted to play the lofty part of supplicants for an injured and suffering people before the Imperial Senate, took every opportunity at Catholic meetings in the metropolis, of declaiming upon the subject of Irish grievances, with a view to producing an effect upon the public mind, if not upon that of the Legislature. O'Connel and Lawless, in a fit of infatuation which only the ardour of their temperaments can excuse, and which the former has already had reason to deplore, concluded a treaty with Cobbet a person who has never yet served a cause without degrading it, and which he did not afterwards betray; by which treaty Cobbet undertook to wield his pen in defence of the Catholics. He, for once, was as good as his word; for immediately he commenced railing with his usual scurrility and coarseness against the Reformation, as the greatest curse which had ever afflicted England—a strange method, it will be thought by some, of propitiating for the Catholics the good will of the English people. Dissensions soon sprung up between Mr O'Connel and his colleague, the uncompromising Mr Lawless. The former, in a letter to the chairman of the Association, dated 7th March, had paid a high compliment to the candid and liberal spirit of the English; and, speaking of the future conduct of the

Association, he thus expressed himself: -"Obedience to the law is our first duty-our next is the peaceable and loyal pursuit, by all the constitutional channels left open for us, of that emancipation, which would not be the victory of party, but would be the means of consolidating the empire, by making the people of Ireland part and parcel of the common strength of the great British nation." Against this conciliatory recommendation of Mr O'Connel, Mr Lawless entered his protest, in a letter addressed to the editors of the London newspapers. The dissensions between those co-champions speedily waxed to the height of a seemingly irreconcilable quarrel, owing to the support given by Mr O'Connel to the celebrated wings, which was the name given to two bills, supplementary or rather auxiliary to the Catholic Emancipation bill, of which we have yet to give an account; and a war of words commenced between them, into the details of which it is unnecessary to enter.

The Association dissolved itself in obedience to the act; but upon the 13th July, a special committee of its members gave in a report to an aggregate meeting held in Dublin; in which they recommended a plan of a new Association, such as the law could not touch. According to this plan, the new Association was to include persons without regard to their religious tenets; and it was not to assume or exercise in any manner the power of acting for, or under the pretence of procuring the redress of grievances in church and state, or for the purpose or under the pretence of carrying on or assisting in the prosecution or defence of causes civil or criminal.

The following, it was proposed, should be its only objects; to promote public peace and private harmony among all the people of Ireland; to promote

education, upon the basis of Christian charity and fair dealing; to procure Catholic chapels and burying grounds; to encourage in Ireland, science, agriculture, manufactures and commerce; to encourage a liberal press, circulate works calculated to promote just principles, and vindicate the Catholics; and to refate the charges brought against the Catholics. The committee farther recommended the collection of a new Catholic rent, of which Mr O'Connel undertook the care and responsibility, for the purpose of upholding the machinery of the Association, and of promoting its objects; and also aggregate and parish meetings throughout Ireland, for the purpose of petitioning Parliament for Emancipation. Though it was held out by the committee, that those meetings should be unconnected with the Catholic Association, that, it was obvious, was a mere colourable pretence; the real design being that they should be as the lesser lights and satellites to that great luminary.

There can be no doubt, that the new Association as proposed, was, by the terms of its constitution, secured by a double fence against the operation of the law; and, at the same time, that, as its objects were really, though not avowedly the same as those of the old one, it in effect defeated the law. It served as a rallying point to the Catholics, and an image of their unanimity and strength, which, to the enemies of the Catholic claims, were the most dreaded features in the old Association; and the limitation of its views to a few specified objects, only gave a concentrated strength to its exertions.

We need scarcely add, that the report of the Committee was received with unbounded applause by the aggregate meeting, and received its formal sanction.

THE HE extremely slow progress which this cause, backed as it has been, by the authority of all whose names are illustrious in the philosophy of legislation and politics, and its occasional retrogressions, present one of the most singular anomalies in the history of the human mind ; an anomaly which makes it doubtful whether man, as he advances in knowledge and civilization, does not impair the stamina of his common sense; and whether the general spread of education (imperfectly as it ever must be conducted among the lower orders,) has not the effect, at least in the first instance, of propagating and confirming delusion and prejudice. The stubbornness with which this cause has been resisted, may be ascribed in a great measure to the extreme sensitiveness of danger which characterizes the English people, when any change is meditated, in what they have been taught to consider are the vital and distinguishing principles of the constitution. Many of these principles are most supposititious-directly opposed to the true principles of the constitution, and may be resolved into mere sentiments, which have been transmitted from generation to generation; and, acquiring, in the course of the transmission, additional strength, like the avalanche, in its descent, they not unfrequently warp, perplex, and stultify the most vigorous understandings.

Among those sentiments, or supposed constitutional principles, may be ranked that of regarding Catholics with such abhorrence as to determine to exclude them for ever from any participation in the management of state affairs; and to treat them, however strongly they may be knitted by affection and interest to the land of their birth, as mere aliens to it, who may be tolerated, but cannot be trusted. Those who entertain the sentiment, and advocate it as a principle, entirely overlook the history of the penal and disqualifying laws against Catholics, which were enacted to suit a most dangerous crisis; and declared by those who proposed them, to be laws of exception, irreconcilable with the spirit of the constitution, dictated by necessity, and meant to serve only a temporary purpose. If such was the language of the authors of those lawsmen who did not remotely apprehend, but were actually beset with dangers arising from Catholic influence and intrigue-when the cicatrices which had been inflicted on the constitution by the machiavelism of a Sovereign who was a Catholic at heart, were "raw and red," with what regard to truth can it be alleged, that those laws were designed to be an integral and unchangeable part and parcel of the constitution?

There is a certain line of argument

pursued by the opponents of the Catholic claims, which terminates, in our judgment, in a logical nonentity; but which nonentity is as a barbed shaft in the breasts of the multitude, which there is no possibility of extricating. It is contended that many of the tenets of the Catholic faith are antiscriptural and superstitious; and great stress, in particular, is laid upon the Popish doctrine of transubstantiation, and the sacrament of confession. That matters of religious faith should ever have been brought to bear upon a political question, will astonish posterity. Men, in their political relations, are little, if at all, influenced by their religious opinions. Among the ancient nations, with whom the grossest Paganism prevailed, there was no want of patriotism or of public virtue: And, prima facie, it appears hazardous to allege, that Catholics, who, judging by the Church of England's standard,

are

more essentially Christian than many other sects, against whom the doors of the constitution are not shut, cannot safely be entrusted, by reason of their faith, with the political privileges which are enjoyed by their fellow subjects. Many of their tenets, we grant, are most superstitious; but it is a perfect non-sequitur to affirm, that on that account alone they must be destitute of every one quality which goes to constitute a loyal citizen.

But there are reasoners who, not content with proving what the friends of emancipation are at no pains to deny, that the Catholic church is superstitious, would deduce from the peculiarity of its regime, and its practice in past times, that it is essentially and necessarily persecuting, and hostile to political freedom. It cannot be denied that, in modern times, Popery has been the great stay and support of

most despotisms; but no less true is it, that it has existed in some countries, as the established religion, along with institutions which were substantially free, and even democratical, without at all endangering them. If historians do not deceive us, the people of England are indebted for their constitutional freedom, not to Catholic barons only, but in a great measure to the Catholic priesthood, who, having sprung from the lower orders, were their natural protectors against tyranny, whether baronial or regal. So long as Popery felt itself secure in the universal religious bigotry of the people, it could have no inimical feeling towards the extension of their political privileges. On the contrary, it must have been secretly pleased with every addition made to the influence and power of the democracy, the effect of which was to limit the authority of the monarch, whose resentments it was incessantly provoking, by its incessant encroachments upon his rights and prerogatives. In those days, high-spirited kings were the natural enemies of the clergy, as the bigotted multitude, on the other hand, were their natural allies.

But the Reformation speedily brought about a most important change in the policy both of sovereigns and of the Catholic church, as regarded each other. That memorable event not only shook the pillars of Popery, but " portended fearful change to monarchs ;" and, therefore, it was felt necessary to establish between them a closer and more amicable connexion. In most countries, the monarch undertook to employ the sword in the extirpation of heretics, and to exclude knowledge from the minds of his subjects; and the church, sensible that a free government necessarily implied freedom of discussion, became the active as

sertors of arbitrary doctrines of government. In adopting this policy, the Catholic church only acted on the law of self-preservation; and it is very doubtful whether, at that period, any other incorporated priesthood, similarly situated, especially if possessed of the splendid temporalities which were involved in the fate of Popery, would have pursued a much different course. This much is certain, that in countries where the reformed religion became that of the state, the Protestant clergy did no scruple to employ, now and then, both the sword and the faggot against those who dissented in the least from their doctrinal code; and, in the Confession of Faith of one reformed church at least, it is laid down that the extirpation of heretics is one of the most sacred duties of the civil magistrate. No one, in those days, imagined the possibility of different religious sects, in the same political society, existing peaceably together, or perceived the iniquity of punishing opinions as crimes. Power is always dogmatic, and disposed to impute a dissent from its opinions to wilful blindness and obstinacy, (which being an error of the heart, is supposed to require the most severe secular correction;) and when united to ignorance, is too prone to act upon the monstrous fallacy. All dominant sects, therefore, were equally intolerant and persecuting; and though more hecatombs of human beings were offered up on the altar of bigotry by the Popish church than by Protestant ones, it is to be considered that the authority of the former was more widely extended; and that innovations, in religion especially,

In

naturally excite a greater abhorrence than sanctified abuses and errors. progress of time, however, reason and philosophy asserted their empire over the human heart, which became sick of the shedding of human blood and the cremation of human bodies, on account of opinions; religious persecution was abandoned by all the nations of Europe, as if by common consent; and it is not a little remarkable, that though the last persecution of the kind, if we may apply that term to the revocation of the edict of Nantes, was undoubtedly Popish, the penult one, which preceded the other by but a few years, and was the most bloody and remorseless of the two, was instigated and directed by a Protestant priesthood against a Protestant sect, which comprised nearly the whole of a nation. We allude to the persecution of the Scotch Presbyterians during the reigns of the two last of the Stuarts.

The corollary we would draw from the above observations is, that the Catholic church is not necessarily nor peculiarly persecuting or hostile to liberty; and that in the instances where such has been its character, we may refer it to the dark spirit of an age which has fled, and to that church having been converted into an engine of state by despotic governments. It is the temporal condition of that church

its relation towards the state in some kingdoms, rather than the nature of its faith, (erroneous as that is,) which has corrupted her clergy. Let the clergy of any other denomination of Christians whatever be similarly circumstanced-render them irresponsible to public opinion, or rather, for