obstruction to amalgamation and community of interests which we have briefly noticed, prevented the employment of English by the Celts, and to this day, like the highlanders of Scotland, they cherish their native speech with a species of idolatry. But as in the Scottish highlands there are now few who do not understand and speak the English tongue, so we hope that in Ireland the mere distinction of language will not much longer continue to keep Celt and Saxon asunder. This is one barrier which necessity and the intercourse of simple juxtaposition are fast breaking down. We doubt whether Mr. O'Connell could converse in Irish. In ancient times however, the obstacle must have been a formidable one, and the invaders blundered in not taking means to do it away. But perhaps the most egregious of all the errors committed in the administration of Irish affairs was the plantation of her present ecclesiastical establishment. The country was declared protestant off-hand and by act of parliament! The Irish themselves have unbounded faith in acts of parliament; but Henry VIII., it would seem had greater, if greater than boundless can be. At this period Browne, Archbishop of Dublin, not only endeavored to promote Henry's views, but was really anxious for a reform in religion, and in the character and learning of the Irish clergy. Writing to Cromwell, Lord Privy Seal, in England, he says, "The people of this nation be zealous, yet blind and unknowing; most of the clergy as your lordship hath had from me before, being ignorant, and not able to speak right words in the Mass and Liturgy, as being not skilled in Latin grammar, so that a bird may be taught to speak with as much sense as some of them do in this country. These sorts though not scholars, are crafty to cozen the poor common people, and to dissuade them from following his highness's orders."* Yet, notwithstanding the archbishop's good will, and his success in procuring an act of the Irish parliament in favor of the king's edict, he was powerfully opposed by Primate Cromer of Armagh; and in course of years, as matters began to look serious, the priesthood abandoned their benefices, and the English popula lation coalesced with the Irish in resisting a change attempted by a proceeding so summary. It was in truth a monstrous and outrageously presumptuous scheme. Except its presumption there was nothing human about it. The hand of a sustained and over... whelming power might, indeed, have annihilated popery, and forced protestantism on the nation. But to dream of such a transmutation by a simple fiat, was like an assumption of His perogative who commanded, and all things stood fast. Salmoneus's trick with his lamps, iron bridge, and rattling shandrydan was a joke to it! Although however, severe pains and penalties were resorted to in order to effect the reformation, a change not very long after, commenced to come over the opinions of civilized men. Christianity, See Life of Dr. George Browne, in a curious volume of pamphlets called the Phoenix. London, 1681. Page 123. which uses not the sword, was beginning to be better understood; and the conviction slowly but steadily gained strength that the conscience ought not to be constrained by the physical force system, either of Mohammed, or of Henry VIII. and his illustrious daughter. Whatever the advocates of catholic emancipation may have af firmed as to the effect of pains and penalties in strengthening a persecuted religion, we are not sure but that, if the Irish penal laws had been vigorously upheld till the present day, popery in that country would have been most materially crippled and verg ing to its fall. I hold popery" writes Sir Walter Scott, in his Diary, Feb. 28th, 1829, "to be such a mean and depraving superstition that I am not sure I should have voted for the repeal of the penal laws as they existed before 1780. They must, and would, in course of time, have smothered popery." Truth and right are indestructible, and even thrive under the knife, like a tree well pruned. Error and wrong have no such vitality. Christianity, however, repudiates coercion, and for that reason we rejoice in the abolition of the Irish penal laws, and the removal of Hiberno-Romish disabilities. We lament also most deeply, every Christian and philanthropist must lament from the bottom of his soul, that in place of the arbitrary and daring process of Henry the Eighth, a legitimate missionary system was not originally adopted, and supported by government as it is in British India. But this policy was not understood when Ireland was pronounced protestant by hu man authority. England and Ireland are both at this very day reaping the fruits of ancient-aye of popish-ignorance and presump tion; for it was in the spirit of a pope that Henry acted. It was just as preposterous to issue a royal mandate for the immediate change of religion, and to erect a full grown church establishment on the still venerated foundation of another in Ireland, as it would be to do the same thing in Hindostan. The difference of distance in the two countries signifies nothing. Cælum non animum mutamus. Now what sane man would propose that the British should ship for the East Indies 10,000 ecclesiastical dignitaries, archbishops, bishops, deans, and the rest, together with 20,000 working clergy; and tell the Brahmins, either you and your people must become Christian ministers and Christian parishioners, or give up your temples for churches, and an annual revenue of some 150 millions of rupees to the spiritual host whom we have levied and sent to convert you'!! The numbers in this case are larger than in the case of Ireland, since the supposed field and population are ten fold larger. But the principle is precisely the same. The plantation of the Protestant establishment in Ireland is one of the most enormous transactions recorded in history. But it may be told us that England was also declared protestant, and its hierarchy either brought over to the new faith, or displaced by other priests through the simple mandate of the same monarch. Why should not this have been done, and with similar success in Ireland? Where the arrogance, and where the ir rationality of the scheme? To these questions we answer that the edict was wrong and arrogant in either case-that Henry VIII., was an Englishman, and the acknowledged hereditary successor to the English throne-that in England he was by an unusual fortune, a popular sovereign, although wielding a most despotic authority partly bequeathed to him by his politic father, and partly acquired by himself-that the English clergy were, to a great extent, dependent upon the influence of the pope's deputy and Henry's favorite, Cardinal Wolsey, and naturally were affected by his fall-that the pope himself was of a weak and vascillating temperament, and placed in very difficult circumstances between the King and the Emperor Charles the Fifth-that the principles of the reformation had, from the days of Wickliffe, been silently making such advances in Englad that even Archbishop Cranmer had become a convert to the doctrines of Luther-that the inain changes introduced by the King were the suppression of monasteries, and the transference of supreme ecclesiastical authority from the Roman Pontiff to himself-from a foreign to a native potentate and that, with the exception of the brief and bloody reign of Mary, which, however, tended to render popery odious, the Reformation was extended by the piety of Edward VI., the wisdom and vigor of Elizabeth, and that respect for the energy of protestantism which must have been impressed upon James I, in his northern and paternal dominions. All these circumstances-the power and policy of princes, the dependence and consequent weakness of the Romish priesthood-indecision and temporising on the part of the pope the smallness of the change originally introduced; and the silently but steadily growing perception of Romish error and imposture-conspired to forward and to fix the protestant religion in England. But if we look to Ireland we shall find that these strong and varied influences either did not exist, or were almost completely neutralized. The English monarchs were still regarded by mere Irishmen as invaders and usurpers; the priesthood were, on the whole, firm and far from the sphere of the court; the new establishment was to the people a foreign one, and they would have infinitely rather chosen subjection to the pope in all things, both spiritual and temporal, than to a Saxon sovereign in either-even the English colonists were more accustomed to an authority near at hand, than to that of the English crown; the country, separated by Great Britain from the continent of Europe, was removed entirely from the current of events in Germany and Switzerland, and, finally, at the time of Henry's attempt, his viceroy, Grey, was, as archbishop Browne confidentially informs the Lord privy seal, "of little or no power with the old Irish." In a word, this new interference of England in affairs the most sacred and inviolate, and on which, if on nothing else, the two nations had been so long agreed, proved the signal for more stubborn resistance, and not for ready or passive submission. We thus perceive that in every particular which can secure the peace and prosperity of a subjugated nation, the history of Ireland presents a striking contrast to the history of England. In warfare, in government, in the administration of justice, in general management, and in religion, all has been different. And the coercion which in the last respect might otherwise have been effectual was rendered nugatory by the lateness of its application. Sufficient severity could not be exercised-we speak as mere politicians in consequence of the advancing enlightenment of the age. England was as a field completely plowed down, but with the seeds of liberty in its bosom, whence they gradually struggled through the well broken soil upward to the air and the sunshine of heaven, and at length stood erect, deep rooted, and immovable, like the native oaks upon her plains. Ireland was as a partially reclaimed wilderness, under the hands of ignorant and reckless colonists, which brought forth thorns and thistles in more rank luxuriance, just by reason of the scanty and fitful husbandry, and where the wolf only prowled with more cunning and fierceness in consequence of the feeble and ineffective inroads that were made from time to time upon his domain. England may be likened to a being, whose whole frame and physiology was subjected to alteration. Ireland may be compared to a patient, whose wounds were made to fester with inveterate malignity, because of unskilful and regardless cutting and cautery, and whose entire constitution was ruined by the incessant application of temporary and trying expedients. Now in view of all that has been said, we hazard the seemingly paradoxical assertion, that Ireland's turbulence and misery are the results, not of over-severity in treatment, but of comparative leniency. Had she been as roughly, and determinedly, and overpoweringly handled as England was, she would have come forth from the ordeal purified, united, prosperous. If she complains of being a conquered country, so likewise may England and all the other divisions of the ancient Roman empire. What reason has she to harp perpetually on her subjugation, as if, in that respect, she stood alone among the nations? It were much wiser for her to leave the things that are behind and reach forth unto the things which are before. England has so frequently interfered in a petty and temporary manner to repress or rectify her troubles, that in every emergency she looks to England for relief, and reviles England as the cause of all her distresses. England has been so, in the sense we have endeavored to explain: and sure we are that England now at least, desires to do its duty to Ireland, and to compensate, not only, by justice in all time coming, but by ample and generous concession, for long centuries of oppression and wrong. Only Irishmen must conduct themselves as reasonable beings, and act, instead of clamoring; be diligent and tractable in business at home, instead of begging foreign aid; and listen to the voice of wisdom instead of giving heed to the agitator and the demagogue. No. 4. ANGELS OF THE PAST. BY ELIZABETH G. BARBER. "Teach oh! teach me to forget!" A sorrowful heart and lonely, Must have breathed that mournful strain, Sweet hours of my childhood's gladness! If ever a shade of sadness Stole over your beauty there, Bright hours of the past! ye meet me, Like spirits of old ye greet me From the bowers of memory's land, Some stand where light is falling, And thier white wings brightly shine, And their smiling lips are calling "Come back!" to this heart of mine. And some are sorrowful minions That stand where sunbeams fade, And the gleam of their motionless pinions But hush! what whisper these angels What holy and sweet evangels Do the bygone moments teach ? "So live that a spirit immortal, That has trod life's path of years, On its farthermost verge, with tears." |