the exercise of that power as the bishop himself would be; that is the nature of reserved cases, and these are the grounds upon which certain cases are reserved.

Are there any cases reserved to the special jurisdiction of the see of Rome itself?-I believe not; there is no case whatever, that I know of, from which the bishop in this country has not the power to absolve. How the Pope treats the matter in his own territory, or in Italy, I cannot say.

In cases in which the priest has the power to absolve, is not his absolution as complete as that of the bishop himself? -I take it to be as perfect as that of the bishop or of the Pope.

Does the priest absolve of himself, as by authority devolved on him by God, or is he merely the instrument of declaring God's pardon to a sinner?-He is more; he absolves by authority, which we believe has been committed to him by God; the words of the absolution imply as much as you may see in the Common Prayer Book.

Is that absolution direct and absolute, or is it conditional, upon the repentance and making atonement on the part of the sinner?-In the form in which it is pronounced it is unconditional and absolute, but it cannot take effect if the penitent be not contrite; but that is his affair; we cannot see the secrets of hearts.

In cases of confession and absolution, is it not the duty of the Roman Catholic clergy, wherever they can, to induce the offender to make restitution and atonement to those whom he has offended in this world?—It is so much their duty, that they cannot at all grant absolution, unless the man has actually made, or engages most solemnly, and as it appears to them, most sincerely, to make as soon as possible, and to the utmost extent of his power, full reparation for any injury he may have done to the person, character, or property of his neighbour.

Have the instances of reparation and restitution, which have taken place within your knowledge, been numerous ? Numerous beyond the power of counting; and they are occurring almost daily. Every gentleman resident in Ireland must well know what a common practice prevails there, of a priest coming and giving money to individuals, and telling them, "This is money which is restored for an injury that has been done to you;" he cannot, however, tell the name of the person by whom the injury has been done, or any thing more about it. We clergymen frequently do this ourselves, but the reparation is much more frequently made in private, by the person who did the injury; we only become the chan

nel through which it is made, where we find that the party concerned cannot make it without exposing himself to be known, to which we do not oblige him.

It must frequently occur, that a person comes before the priest, who has been engaged in plans for doing mischief, either public or private; what is the uniform conduct of the priests in your church in such cases?-Our uniform conduct is, to oblige such person to withdraw himself from any wicked society of men with whom he may have been connected; to make reparation to the full extent of his power, for all the injuries which were done by him, or by the party with which he was associated; for we conceive, that a man is bound not only to repair the injury which he himself committed, but also the injury to which he had been a party; the many ways in which a man becomes obliged to make reparation for injuries not done directly by himself, are comprehended in a verse, which is found in our theology: "Jussio consilium consensus palpo recursus participans mutus, non obstans, non manifestans.' If a man concur in any of those ways to the doing of an injury, he is bound to repair it as an accomplice, in the default of the principal.

In cases of mischief intended to be done, either to the public or to an individual, would not every priest of your church feel it his bounden duty to prevent that mischief being done, without disclosing the name of the individual, by ap prising either the state or the party to whom the mischief is intended to be done?-We can make no use of any knowledge derived from confession; but it is uniformly our practice to dissuade the penitent from the intended crime; and I, myself, have frequently prevented the commission of mischief, by obliging the person who felt compunction at being concerned in plotting some evil, not at first to inform, but to dissuade his companions from doing the intended wrong; if he did not effectually succeed thus, then by obliging him to warn the person concerned of the danger, or to give such information to him, or to a magistrate, or other proper authority, as would effectually prevent the intended evil.

Did not you, in the commencement of the late disturb ances, publish a pastoral letter, warning your flock from entering into any of the illegal confederacies of the day?—I did.

Do you know whether that pastoral letter was reprinted and circulated by any, and what, of the public authorities in Ireland? I have heard that it was, but I do not know it of my own knowledge; I heard, it is true, and in a kind of way

hich I could not be deceived, that there was an edition

of it published in Cork, by the gentleman who commanded His Majesty's troops in that quarter; I believe there was an edition of it also in Galway, by some of the public authorities in that town; whether there was one in Dublin I do not know; but I know that printers, for their own profit, did publish a great number of them.

In the event of the introduction of any of those illegal conspiracies into any part of the country, was not one of the earliest signs of the existence of those disturbances the absence of the peasantry concerned in them from confession ?—Yes, it was; the persons uniformly absented themselves from confession. I should say, however, that the pastoral letter, to which the Committee allude, could not have had much effect if it had not been sustained by the personal exertions of the clergy; it was not only by publishing that pastoral letter, that I endeavoured to check the evil which prevailed in that part of the country, but I also spent several weeks, going from parish to parish, and preaching to multitudes of people in the chapels, and sometimes by the way sides, against the society in which they were engaged; pointing out to them, as well as I could, the unlawful nature of it, its opposition to the law of God and to the laws of the country, as well as the evil results with which it was fraught if persevered in.

What society do you allude to?-The society of Ribbon

men.

Do you know any instances in which the Roman Catholic clergy, following the same course that you have described with regard to yourself, were in consequence exposed to any personal danger ?—I do; a clergyman, even in my own diocese, was put in peril of his life, and I was obliged to remove him from one parish to another, through a strong apprehension which he entertained, and in which I also participated, that if he continued in the parish where he laboured to check this evil, he might be assassinated.

Do you know any instances in which, in consequence of such opposition as you have described on the part of the Roman Catholic clergy, surrenders of arms have been made, to any considerable extent ?—Yes, nothing more common; there was scarcely a parish where there had been many seizures of arms, where such arms were not either entirely, or in part, delivered up to the clergyman, and by him, or by his directions, to the magistrate, for he very often did not receive the arms himself, but directed the person to surrender them to the magistrate.

Have there been any other efforts made of another descrip

tion, by you in your diocese, to convey moral and religious instruction to your Roman Catholic brethren?-I have not ceased, during the few years I have been bishop, to promote education of every kind, but particularly of a religious kind; for this purpose I have frequently required of the clergy to seek to raise contributions amongst the people, for the purpose of building schools and assisting to pay schoolmasters, where the peasantry were not able to pay them for educating their children. I have sometimes, upon the death of a parish priest, kept the parish vacant for some time, and have taken into my own hands what of the dues could be spared after supporting the assistant-priest, and applied those sums for the building of schools; besides which, I have established in every parish within the two dioceses of which I have the care, parochial libraries, which I have had stocked with books of religious and moral instruction exclusively; those books are given out to heads of families, upon their paying a penny a week or a fortnight for the use of them; they are given to the poor gratis; when a man has read one of those books, he returns it to the librarian upon the Sunday; he then gets another, and thus every class of people in the diocese are instructed in their moral, social, and religious duties.

Will you have the kindness to state to the Committee, whether Gother's Gospel, Reeve's History of Christ, Chaloner's Morality of the Bible, and other books of a similar description, are amongst the books in those libraries ?-The books that have been named are found, I believe, in every library within my diocese ; all these libraries consist of books of a religious nature exclusively; for I do not admit into them any profane history, or any political tract, or any book of science unmixed with morals.

Have there been any societies established within your diocese called Confraternities, for the purpose of administering religious and moral instruction to the poor ?-When I came into that diocese, I found a few such societies existing in it, but from the advantages which I perceived to result from them, I myself recommended at the several visitations I held in the chapels, in the strongest and most earnest manner, that such confraternities should be formed; and I do not know that there is at present any one chapel in the diocese, to which there is not a confraternity of the Christian doctrine, as we call it, attached. These confraternities consist of young men and young females of a religious character, who assemble at an early hour on Sundays, and dispose the children in classes, and teach them the rudiments of the Christian religion; they read before mass to them some pious

lecture or instruction; and in some chapels after mass resume the same business, and continue it for an hour or two ; they conclude these instructions by some form of prayer, after which they disperse and go home.

Do you conceive that the present state of your chapels and the insufficient accommodation which they afford to the Roman Catholic congregations in Ireland, impedes the efforts of the Roman Catholic clergy in giving religious instruction to the people? Perhaps one of the greatest obstacles to the instruction of the people in Ireland, is the want of sufficient room in our chapels, but this is an evil which it is not in our power to remedy; the pressure upon the peasantry is so great from various causes, that they have not the means of enlarging their chapels, still less of building them anew, without making sacrifices which are peculiarly oppressive to them; and I have myself often ordered a chapel to be enlarged, or said, that otherwise I would not permit mass to be celebrated in it, and yet upon the representation of the priest, as to the distress and extreme poverty of the people, I have withdrawn such order, and suffered them to proceed as well as they could.

Have you known many instances in which, in poor parishes which have been unable themselves to build or to enlarge their chapels, contributions have been made for the purpose of assisting them, by Protestant landlords and Protestant in, habitants ?-Within my diocese we have not enlarged or built any chapel, since my appointment to my present office, in doing which we have not been assisted and materially assisted by Protestant gentlemen; in the parish in which I reside, about six years ago we commenced a very beautiful chapel; we were enabled chiefly by the assistance given to us by Protestant gentlemen to build the walls and even to roof them in; I myself have endeavoured out of my small income to contribute some forty or fifty pounds a-year, for the two or three last years to the advancement of this work; but, from the extreme poverty of the parishioners, I have not till lately ventured to call upon them for any aid, and the building though a beautiful one, remains in that unfinished state; Sir Henry Parnell has been one of our most bountiful contributors towards this building.

Are there not instances in which Protestant proprietors, who are generally considered as being extremely adverse to the Roman Catholic claims, have nevertheless felt it to be their duty to come forward, and assist the Catholics in building or repairing their chapels ?-That perhaps is the only matter in which I can scarcely distinguish between those of the Protestant gentry who are adverse, and those who are