while the work is done, the strangers disappear, and all is hushed up.

But there is another fact, still more remarkable. We are not afraid of contradiction from any quarter in describing the power of the priests over the people as absolute. The nature of it we may suggest on another occasion. But there seems to be nothing which it cannot effect, except when some other mysterious power-a power not of the people, but of something beyond the people-comes in to check it. A body of soldiers have their arms stolen: Government is roused; application is made to the priest; the priest denounces the culprits from the altar; and the arms are the next day restored. It is asked why this power is not enforced in the every-day seizures of arms from private houses. The answer is, 'the priest dares not.' So also in the Temperance-movement. The priests and even the bishops at first affected to oppose it. Mr. Matthew is a simple, well-intentioned man, who has been drawn into the position which he occupies almost against his will. His only fault is, that, on the principle of original Popery, he consents to encourage one evil, superstition, in his followers, in order to wean them from another evil, drunkenness. Undoubtedly he has done much good; but he is a friar, and friars are not popular with the secular priests. It was soon found, however, that the Temperance Association was capable of being turned into a powerful engine. It enabled agitators to parade the people in vast masses. It gave a bond of union, and a badge quite as efficacious as an oath, in the temperance medal, which, it is now understood, will be a security not only against the torment of another world, but in the coming massacre to distinguish Papists from Protestants.' It enables secret associations to be formed within the outer union. It secures one of the express objects of the Ribbon oath, sobriety, to prevent the betrayal of dangerous secrets. It raises an immense revenue; and it keeps up in the minds of the people the sense of a combination, and of duties, and expectations, distinct from those of citizens, and binding them closer to their priests. A change has now come over these priests, and they are obliged to encourage what at first they condemned. Secretly they repudiate the Temperance-movement, and openly they promote it. So again, when an open battle was expected to take place between the people and the soldiery, during the tithe affrays,* the priests interfered, and peace was restored. It is a fact of common occurrence. When asked why they did not interfere to prevent the tithe-movement altogether, the answer was not, we do not like, but we do not dare. Now the tithe-movement, as the witnesses agree, did not emanate from the people;

* See Report on Tithes.

the

the people had paid their tithes cheerfully before; they respected their Protestant ministers (all this is proved as distinctly as anything of the kind can be proved by the evidence before the House of Lords); they even continued to pay them secretly in a number of cases: their resistance was for the most part compulsory. Therefore, by the confession of the priests, the power was something distinct from a mere democratical movement. Democracy in Ireland! alas! what are men thinking of? They may as well talk of the democracy of Morocco! But add another fact. This power watches over something else than the ejectments of the landlords: it watches over what is called the purity of the priest's faith. A sermon indicating anything like heresy, that is, inclination to Protestantism on his part, will make him as obnoxious to this secret tribunal as a civil offence in any of his flock. Priests have been beaten as well as Protestants. This is therefore a spiritual power. Then add the assertion of Mr. Morrissy, and the disclosures connected with Dens's Theology, which relate to the introduction of the Inquisition into Ireland, and its existence there at this moment. Our limits will not allow us to bring together the passages, nor do we intend to do more than suggest hints for inquiry. Recollect that the battle of Popery in Ireland is a battle against the landlords as well as against the Church; that both must be extirpated before Popery can become master of the country. See how this system of terrorism naturally works in preventing the landlords from surrounding themselves with a Protestant tenantry. Inquire if a landlord is allowed to shift even a willing tenant without risking a denunciation from the priest; if Romanists are allowed by their priests to emigrate; if every effort is not made by the priests to fix the peasantry to the soil-whether that the physical force of Popery, or that their own dues may not be diminished, we do not say. Then see how the system acts in driving landlords from their estates; observe how murder after murder is committed, like minute-guns, to keep up the alarm, without rousing public indignation too far. Recollect the principles of Jesuitism, and the policy of Rome; and we think it might be thought worth while to inquire-is there any connexion between these agrarian outrages and a movement of another description within the bosom of the Romish Church?

But the priests denounce Ribbonism. Undoubtedly; the old priests did; and for so doing were ill-treated by the bishops. This has been proved. But so did Dr. Doyle. Undoubtedly. When the Government in 1822 had put down the insurrection, Dr. Doyle did publish a pastoral letter, a very remarkable production, delivered by Dr. Murray as evidence, in which he warns his dear children, the Ribbonmen, bound together by an oath to commit

murder

murder at five minutes' warning-not to allow their just hatred to Orangemen to break out in premature rebellion, which could not be successful; in which he enforces obedience to the Crown, as if the Crown were Pagan; in which, having previously declared to the House of Lords that insurrection was one of the gravest of offences,' and merited excommunication, he gives them his 'peace and benediction.' We have not space to analyse it farther; but it is a very singular specimen of that old rhetorical figure, by which two meanings are couched under the same words, according as they are received by two classes of readers, and it well deserves to be studied. But the priests, it is acknowledged by witnesses, do give their assistance in repressing disorder. Undoubtedly; when those disorders exceed the point marked out by that Jesuitical policy now openly prescribed from head-quarters, of evading, not braving, the law. But do the same witnesses prove, that, while there is an open repression, there is a secret instigation of sedition? The people, it has been testified again and again, understand the denunciation. They know the policy recommended by Dr. Hussey of establishing a party between the priests and the common people, which may defy the law and the landlords; and they know that, without intention in the priest, the most terrific threats and curses are perfectly invalid. At times the denunciation only extends to threats of withholding rites which are not sought. In all the disturbances in Ireland, will the New Maynooth priests produce one case where these rites have been refused on this ground? At other times the avowed object of the denunciator is not to eradicate the secret conspiracies, but to merge them in some new form of Pacificators or Precursors. Perhaps also it might be worth while to inquire whether such cases as the following are

common:

'That the Church of Rome,' says one of many documents before us, on which we are authorised to place the strongest confidence, might appear to Government not to be connected with, or to favour Ribbonism, a few years ago it was published from every Popish altar, and sanctioned by their bishops, "that no person should be admitted to confession who was connected with any illegal society;" and as it was one of the Ribbon articles, that each member should receive the sacrament yearly, the Ribbonmen went to confession at the time intervening between the old and new quarter, immediately before receiving the renewals (of their tickets and pass-words); and if at all asked, "were they party-men?" they unhesitatingly answered "No," as considering themselves to be none. And that the priests were known to (or knew) this plan, I was informed by, of who was then Ribbon delegate for the county of, and of, then parish priest of -— . Some years back,' says another document, a man came to lodge information before me, as a magistrate, for a Whiteboy attack on his

house,

house, but refused, for a long time, to give the names of any of the parties, though I plainly saw that he knew them. At length he told me that his priest had ordered him not to let me know that he knew any of them. At another time the serjeant of police (a Roman Catholic), who was stationed near my house, told me that the priest desired him not to inform me, as a magistrate, of anything he heard said in the chapel, or elsewhere, relative to the anti-tithe agitation which was then raging.'

These are mere specimens. Perhaps Colonel Macgregor could also give some information as to a case in Sligo of communications, between the priest and the constabulary, touching informations of this kind. That Ribbonmen are applied to by the priests for assistance in contested elections, has been sufficiently proved before the Lords' Committee. And there are also numerous symptoms of a singular interest which is felt by the priest in behalf of such criminals when convicted of offences, and which is indicated by testimonials to the good character of the most notorious offenders, by denunciation of informers against them, and by more than pecuniary aid to defend them on their trials. We by no means mean to imply that the priests are the authors of Ribbonism; far from it. But there are other relations in life besides those of father and son; and where there is an evident similarity of objects, identity of principle, and mutual influence and interest, will the reader be quite wrong in suspecting some family tie?

We will add another suggestion. Are there not in the Romish Confession the strongest obligations on the priest to enforce reparation for injuries, not merely on the actual perpetrator of an outrage, but on all the standers-by who did not interfere to prevent it? Is not this one of the recognised paramount duties of the Confessional? Are there not innumerable cases of outrages committed by Ribbonism, in which hundreds are privy to the actno one interferes, no one offers reparation,-do the priests ever attempt to enforce it? When the question is pushed home to them, is not the answer this, that it is a problem-a mystery ;' that there are circumstances which might explain it, but what they are, no one is disposed to tell? It is indeed a mystery; and the sooner Englishmen think it worth examination the better.

Once more-that these Whitefoot and Ribbon outrages are employed as much against heresy as against landlords, and against all constituted authorities, may be seen in the oath:-I swear I will, to the best of my power, cast down kings, queens, and princes, dukes, earls, lords, and all such, with landjobbers and heresy !'* It is a power, therefore, as before said, connected with religion but it is not responsible to the parochial clergy. 1

* Given in evidence before a Parliamentary Committee in 1832.

swear,'

swear,' continues the oath, that I will never tell the man's name that made me, nor the man's name that stood by making me a Ribbonman or Whitefoot, to any other under the canopy of heaven; not even to a priest or bishop, or any one in the Church.' But, bound as they are under a spiritual obligation,' they must attend the mass, and they must confess-To whom? It must be to some other power within the Church, but of a different kind; and such we know to exist in the regular establishments of Rome. Can the friars and regulars say mass in other places than parish chapels? Is it not the practice to do so? Have they not far more influence over the people than the secular priests? Is there not great jealousy between the two bodies? Is not this the secret of the quarrel now breaking out between Dr. Mac Hale and Dr. Murray? We will suggest another question. Is this system of terrorism brought to bear in aid of the priests, when they wish to show that the curses denounced by them are not without a temporal execution? Is there generally, in parishes where the priests choose to employ it, a body of men who understand the hint given from the altar, and by whom it is executed? Was Lord Norbury, for instance, denounced before he was murdered?

We have suggested these ideas merely as hints to those, who are examining into the nature of that singular, mysterious power, which is now establishing the reign of terrorism in Ireland; allied with the parochial priesthood against so-called heresy ; joined with it in common rebellion against tithes, landlords, England, and the Church; keeping that priesthood in check when hesitating to march with it; as an arm of physical violence, distinct from it; as held together by what the Whitefoot oath asserts it to be, 'a spiritual obligation,' united with it; obeying it with servile implicitness, just so far as some other secret hand prescribes obedience,-spurning, and even attacking it, (for priests in this case are beaten as well as others), when it presumes to move with a will of its own. One way there seems to be of explaining this, and only one. Might not the archives of the Propaganda possibly supply the key? In this we have not spoken of the general organisation in which Ireland is held,-ready, as it were, to move at any moment, and by a hand which no one sees. Whether the burning turf is sent round, or an aggregate repeal meeting held, or the doors of houses marked by night, or temperance-processions marshalled, still the people are constantly kept alive, waiting for the sound of the tocsin. Lines, secret but unbroken, are laid throughout the whole country. When a murder is to be perpetrated, it is known by hundreds,-but no one betrays it. Have you heard Mr. has been shot? said a gentleman to his labourers.