You also stated that those who committed crimes against the landlords and agents were Ribbonmen? Entirely so? murders. Yes. Yes; all those who committed the recent Were they all Roman Catholics who were accused of these murders in the north? Yes. You are not aware of any Protestants having been accused of committing any of these murders? No. THE PROVINCIAL SYNOD AT ST. MARY'S, OSCOTT. From the Times. There is now lying before us a printed paper bearing the title of a synodical letter of the "Fathers assembled in Provincial Council at St. Mary's, Oscott," and the style which the said Fathers are pleased to assume is :-"We, the Archbishops and Bishops of the province of Westminster, in provincial synod assembled, to our heloved brethren and children in Christ, the clergy secular and regular, and the faithful under our jurisdiction." Since the Bull of 1850, and the swaggering pastoral which accompanied it, we have not seen anything more deliberately and studiously impertinent. With what an easy assumption do these men talk of the province of Westminster as of a geographical division of our Island, legal, patent, and notorious; with what perfect nonchalance do they put aside the law of the country in which they live by which this ecclesiastical provision is proscribed! They have discovered the art of conveying more insolence and defiance by mere omissions than others can do by the most laboured invectives. The utter absence of any reference to the existing religion and hierarchy of the country excites the same feeling of indignation as two years ago, and points out in the most expressive terms the unbending and undeviating arrogance which thus avails itself of our tolerance to insult us. We observe also that in this document the bishops claim "jurisdiction," a term of distinct legal import, implying the possession of lawful powers, and therefore, in a case where no such powers exist, asserting a right in the Pope to intermeddle at his pleasure with the laws and institutions of this country, and to interpolate among them regulations which have, for so the word imports, a compulsory and obligatory force. These bishops, in provincial synod assembled, addressed only "the faithful," under their jurisdiction, clearly implying that they have jurisdiction over the faithful, that is, over her Majesty's Protestant subjects, and that if that jurisdiction be not enforced, it is from a defect of power, and not of right. When we consider that these men remain in this country and exercise their spiritual func tions merely because the nation is too deeply devoted to the principles of toleration to suffer them to be violated, even in the most odious cases, we may well wonder that they should adopt a tone of such exuberant and overbearing intolerance, as if they wished to see if it were possible, by any amount of provocation and insult, to induce us to retrace our steps, and employ those weapons of persecution against them on which their church in all ages has relied. They may possibly succeed in this wicked and hollow policy, but succeed far more completely than they desire. Looking at the pledges given by the members of the new parliament, and the feeling evinced throughout the country, it is not very likely the next time the Roman Catholic religion forms the subject of legislation it will be dealt with as leniently as before, and it is very possible that public opinion, if thus wilfully and repeatedly irritated, may demand the reinforcement of such laws as still remain on the statute book to curb the aggressions and check the insolence of the Papacy and its adherents. Appointment of Paul Cullen, an alien, to the Roman Catholic Primacy. From a London Journal. The mode in which Irish Roman Catholic bishops have been appointed, it seems, is by a species of election by the priests of the vacant diocese and the bishops of the province. These assembled, and selected three names, which were forwarded to Rome. The Pope appointed the bishop. He was not bound, indeed, to select him from the three recommended, but it is said that there never had been an instance in which the practice of electing one of these had been departed from before the recent appointment of a Primate; while so generally was the recommendation acted on that almost invariably the first named of the three was the individual appointed. The writer in the Dublin University Magazine, evidently one thoroughly acquainted with the subject of which he treats, cites various passages from the evidence of Roman Catholic prelates before the parliamentary committee of 1852, to prove that this mode of nomination was then regarded as an established usage, and, further, was strongly relied upon by these Roman Catholic witnesses, as offering a perfect pledge of fidelity, on the part of the elected bishops, to the country and the Government; excluding virtually all foreign influence in the nomination, and ensuring, further, the selection of resident British subjects, bound, as well as the electors, to the Sovereign by the oath of allegiance. It appears, however, that when the Roman Catholic Primacy became vacant by the death of Archbishop Croly the Pope, in nominating his successor, adopted the utterly unprecedented step of entirely disregarding the recommendation of the Irish priests, and bishops, and nominated a stranger who had not been named or thought of in a single suffrage at the domestic election, passing by three men of the very highest repute and most blameless character in the Irish Roman Catholic church, whose names were recommended by the priests and bishops. The Papal Court nominated to the vacant Primacy Dr. Cullen, an Irishman by birth, but who had for thirty years been domiciled as a priest in "the Eternal city," and who, therefore, in feeling, in habit, and association, may fairly be considered as a foreigner-whom we may certainly believe to be imbued with the politics and sentiments of the Papal Court. Here, then, argues the writer of the University Magazine, is lost the security upon which such Romish prelates as Dr. Doyle and Archbishop Murray declared the State might depend. The new Primate has been appointed, not by Irishmen, but by Italiang. He owes his nomination to his high office, in no degree, however small, to the choice or recommendation of any one even owing the duty of allegiance to the Queen. On the contrary, his appointment is a direct slight upon the recommendation of British subjects. Neither is he a resident of the British dominions. The Irish born priest, who has for thirty years been a resident at the Vatican, is a denizen, not of Ireland, but of Rome. And when this prelate comes to Ireland, owing his elevation entirely to Papal influence, and comes, moreover, with a special pontifical delegation, we find his very first act to be to convene, in a style, so far as his means extended, of pompous magnificence, a Synod that he calls national. Over his novel convocation he presides, by the delegated authority of the Pope, and it is now no secret that, for the express purpose of over-ruling the opinions of the more moderate Irish bishops, he calls upon the Synod to register with uninquiring reverence the decrees of the papal conclave, regulating the mode in which Irishmen are to be educated, and denouncing the institutions which the British parliament and British Sovereign have provided for that purpose. Without saying how far we adopt the inferences that the Dublin University Magazine draws from these facts, it cannot be denied that the unusual mode of this appointment, following the still more unusual proceedings by which his primacy has been inaugurated, does at least lend countenance to the suspicion that some new and daring policy is contemplated at Rome, to carry out which it was necessary to break through established usages and select the most fitting instrument, in disregard of recommendations that have been usually deferred to. So far, the facts stated by the writer in the magazine are facts of public notoriety, and upon the existence of which, therefore, no controversy can arise. Another statement, however, is added, for which no authority is given, and which, we confess, appears to require some. It is stated in the very respectable and cautious periodical upon which we are commenting, that the new Primate has declined to take the oath of allegiance to the Queen, and the necessity of taking that oath as a qualification is assigned as a reason for his refusing an office of charity and trust. If this statement be accurate, and it has now been a fortnight before the public uncontradicted, it does appear to us to be a matter deserving the most serious attention. Perhaps, if it be true, the most charitable construction of Dr. Cullen's conduct would be that, by long residence in Rome, he regarded himself as a naturalised Roman citizen, The plea would be as bad in reason as it would be in law. We confess that, with the power and status now conferred upon the Irish Roman nan Catholic church, we cannot feel it a matter of indifference that the head of that church-a man too who seems resolved to signalise his primacy by calling out its energies into unusual activity-should, in temporal as well as spiritual things, consider himself a Roman not a British citizen a subject of Pio Nono, and not of the Queen. Let us hope that, as to this matter of the oath of allegiance, there is some mistake. Still, whatever may the real state of facts with regard to this, there is in the unqestioned facts that are made the subject of comment in the University Magazine, in the strange spectacle of the recently assembled Synod, viewed in connection with the appointment of its convenerthere is, we say, in these things matter sufficient to occupy the grave attention of all who know the tremendous influence which the policy of the Romish Church can exercise upon the peace and prosperity of Ireland, and through Ireland, upon the wellbeing of the British Empire. To the Editor of the "Morning Herald.” Sir,—In the very curious and extraordinary correspondence which has appeared in your paper, in reference to Mr.M'Gregor's visit to Maynooth College, and Dr. Russell's epistle from the same establishment, repudiating the charges brought by the former gentleman against that College, I beg now, as an alumni, to make one remark explanatory of my experience in the said School of Divinity, Dr. Russell states, of course on his honour, that "each Student had his own copy of the Bible." Now I assert, with all the solemnity of an oath, that while I lived in that College, during a period of six years, a and was educated for a priest of the Church of Rome, I had no Bible in my possession from the College; nor am I aware that any of my class-fellows then possessed a copy of that sacred book; nor was it a class-book in our divinity course, even in a dead language! After the usual career in College, I was ordained by the Most Rev. Dr. Murray, from whom I still retain my Letters of Orders. When by the blessing of God, I came to read the Bible, I renounced for ever the Popery of Romanism, and embraced the pure religion of Jesus Christ as it is taught in the United Church of England and Ireland, under the auspices of the Priests' Protection Society. Messrs. M'Gregor and Russell may settle the matter in dispute as best they can; but this one thing I have done—I have stated the truth, and have the honour to be, Your most obedient Servant, 23, Upper Sackville-street, Dublin, March 5th, 1852. PATRICK O'BRIEN, THE CLASS BOOKS OF MAYNOOTH. From the Morning Advertiser. We can find in the British Museum, Sion college, and most other of our public liberaries, copies of all the books written by the Jesuits, which were condemned by the parliament of Paris in 1762, and publicly burned by the common hangman, on account of the felonious principles of action which they inculcate. Among them were the works of twenty-eight individual Jesuits, and one company of them, for teaching perjury, forgery, and bearing false witness; of six individual Jesuits for teaching collusion of judges; of thirty-two Jesuits for teaching theft and private or secret compensation by wives, children, and servants; of seventeen for defending and teaching open and secret murder; of five for defending and teaching the murder of parents; of three for teaching suicide; and above fifty individual Jesuits, and of the Jesuits of Flanders, for defending, teaching, and exhorting to the perpetration of high treason, and the open and secret murder of sovereign princes, or regicide. Many other works of Jesuits were burned at the same time, for defending and inculcating the infamous doctrines of probable opinions, philosophical sin, and invincible ignorance; and the practice of simony, blasphemy, sacrilege, magic, impiety and atheism, idolatry, astrology, lewdness, &c. We cannot state with precision the number of authors whose works were then burned, because many were published, as the productions of |