necessary, to confirm it with an oath." He goes on to say, "A confessor may affirm, even with an oath, that he does not know of a sin admitted to him in confession," the equivocation being that standing as man he does not know it, but that he knows it only as the minister of Christ. (Hear, hear.) Then, as to oaths, he says, that a person taking an oath before a Judge, that he will reveal all he knows, is not bound to reveal certain things. And then he gives us some illustrations as to what he means by this equivocation; for instance, that a culprit guilty of some great crime, the punishment of which would be the galleys or death, might say upon oath that he did not commit it, because he did not so commit as to be bound to confess it. Again, if a poor man has abstracted goods for his subsistence he may deny it; and, even a man of property, who has concealed property which ought to go to satisfy his creditors, may say to the Judge that he has not done so, the mental reserve being, that he has not concealed the goods to deceive his creditors. According to the same authority a servant may deny his master, and say he is not here, the equivocation being that he is not here where he, the servant, is standing. Or the servant may say, my master went out, referring in his own mind to some past occasion. Or, if a nobleman who is inquired for happens to be in bed, his servant may say that he is out, that is, out of the way of business. (Hear, hear.) Such are the statements of Alphonsus Liguori, concerning whom, upon the authority of the Church of Rome, it is declared that he has not written a word worthy of censure. Now, I would appeal to every Protestant, and to every honest Roman Catholic, whether such a system is not utterly subversive of the first principles of morality and good faith. But I observe this, too, that wherever the Roman Catholic system is prevalent, just in proportion to the prevalence of that system is the predominance of crime. This is proved by the statistics contained in the Report of the Inspector-General of Prisons in Ireland presented to the House of Lords. By that document it appears, that the total number of commitments in February in the year 1853, was 78,525. Of these 7,361 were Protestants, and 71,164 Roman Catholics. Now, according to Mr. Fagan, a Roman Catholic Member of Parliament, the Roman Catholic to the Protestant population of Ireland is as three-fifths to two-fifths, yet we find that the proportion of crime is as ten to one in the Roman Catholic as compared with the Protestant population. The population of Protestant Ulster in 1851, was 2,400,289, and the total number of commitments was 8,767, while in the Roman Catholic province of Munster, the population of which was 1,831,817 the commitments amounted to 23,692, being an excess in the Roman Catholic over the Protestant province, of 14,931. Take another case. Limerick, a Roman Catholic county and city, contained, in 1851, a population of 256,686, and the total number of commitments in the year was 7,983, or one in every thirty-three. The total population of the Protestant county of Donegal in the same year was 254,288, and the number of commitments 694, or one in 360. (Hear.) Thus in the Roman Catholic county, the number of commitments was one in thirty-three, while in the Protestant county, it was one in 360. (Hear, hear.) But I am indebted to my Rev. Friend, Canon Miller,

for some very important statistics, with which I will trouble the Meeting :

In Protestant England, there were prosecuted every year for murder, in each million of the population

In Ireland, before the great emigration, there were

In Ireland, after so many Romanists left the island, and the proportion of the Protestant population became larger, the number fell to

In Belgium, least immoral of Popish countries

In France, where murder is classified rather scientifically, under the heads of assassination, infanticide, parricide, poisoning, and military cases

In Austria, the like varieties of murder

In Bavaria, now become purely "Catholic!

In Sardinia, where there has been for ages (one part of that kingdom) some Protestant influence, the number drops to

In Lombardo-Venetia, it is up again to

In Tuscany, where a British Christian, if in earnest, may not live
In the Papal States, where the " Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman
Church" has everything her own way, the number is .
In Sicily, not quite so intensely demoralised by the Church, it
comes down to

In Naples, where they have a taste for blood, and publicly exhibit
the blood of one St. Januarius every year, there is made an
exquisitely careful classification of murder, into parricide,
husband-murder, wife-murder, murder of other relatives,
infanticide, poisoning, murder premeditated, murder inten-
tional, assassination, murder with robbery, and murder with
adultery. Of all sorts of murder the dreadful proportion to
each million in Naples is no less than

4

45

19

188

68

100

90

200

4

But in England, let it be once more noted, only This showed that in every country, in proportion as Popery prevailed, crime prevailed. (Hear.) I ask, then, is it either bigotry or intolerance, or anything but true patriotism and pure Christianity, to desire to see a system so prolific of crime, swept from the face of the earth? (Applause.) I have another reason for protesting against the political system of Popery. It is this. Depend upon it, that Roman Catholics will never be satisfied with anything short of supremacy. (Hear, hear.) It is throwing dust in our eyes to say Roman Catholicism is tolerant. It cannot be tolerant. It aims at nothing else but universal supremacy, and to make every sovereign and every nation crouch down at the feet of the Papacy. (Hear, hear.) Another fact; all the efforts of Roman Catholicism have for years been concentrated on the effort to unprotestantize England. (Hear, hear.) To our shame be it spoken, those efforts have been more or less seconded by traitors within the camp. (Hear, hear.) And we have heard from professedly Protestant lips the unhallowed sentiments that the time has come when we must seek to unprotestantize the Church of England. I am not altogether at one with some who think that the success of the Roman Catholic Church, in the attempt to make proselytes in England, has been co-extensive with her efforts.

But, whether or not she has been successful in those efforts to make proselytes in England, there can be no doubt that the machinery. she has applied to that purpose has been largely augmented, and larger efforts brought to bear, within the last ten years, than at any period since the Reformation. (Hear, hear.) Are you aware that, as contrasting the number of Roman Catholic chapels in England, in 1843, and 1853, there was an increase in those ten years, of 234 Roman Catholic chapels, of 386 priests, 58 nunneries, and 14 monasteries! In one year, viz., 1852-3, there was an increase of 31 Roman Catholic chapels, and 87 priests. So that we have now actively at work in England, 1,126 Romish priests, labouring in as many as 812 chapels, and this independently of all those several agencies which we are unable to appreciate, but which we know are actively at work endeavouring to undermine our Protestant constitution, and to sap the foundation of the Protestant spirit of the country. (Hear, hear.) It is by the representation of such facts as these that this Association may be instrumental in rousing the dormant energies of the country; and if we can succeed in doing so, and the Protestant spirit of the country should be expressed as I hope it will be expressed, then the question is, what is the direction you will give to the energies you have so roused? It is always well to have a definite point upon which to concentrate your energies. (Hear, hear.) I believe that the grand point to be attacked in the first instance, is the abominable grant to Maynooth. (Loud applause.) Not only is it the grossest inconsistency, but a direct departure from our profession as Protestants, that we should contribute 30,000l. a-year for the purpose of educating and training men to preach and to propagate that system which the -Protestant Constitution of the country pronounces to be idolatrous and superstitious. (Applause.) Nor can it be said that the number of priests educated at Maynooth is required by the exigencies of Ireland; and if this be the case, then the question arises, what becomes of those who are not needed to meet those exigencies? I recollect the late Sir R. Peel saying, when it was urged in regard to the proposal for endowing Maynooth, "That if Protestant money was to go to the support of an Institution for training Roman Catholic priests, and if, in the excess of our liberality, we were to contribute towards the maintenance of a system we abhorred, we ought, at least, to take measures for satisfying ourselves that the education given in this Institution was good, and that the money was appropriated to the purpose for which it was given." I remember the reply of that statesman was, "No, we will not mar the grace of the gift; we will make the grant without insisting on any supervision or control; we will neither overlook nor interfere." It would appear that the Roman Catholics are taking a lesson from the liberality of Sir R. Peel-they are determined not to mar the grace of the gift by confining its benefits to Ireland, but send their best men here-those who are most deeply impregnated with the Maynooth principles-to undermine the Protestant feeling, and the Protestant principle of this country. (Applause.) For these reasons I trust that this Association will receive the support to which it is entitled, and that the Protestant energies of the country may be concentrated on the effort to undo that national sin which was con

summated in the passing of the Maynooth Endowment Act. (Applause.) But when we accomplish that result-and I believe in my conscience that we shall accomplish it (loud applause)-we must not suppose that our warfare is over. (Hear, hear.) I can see hovering in the distance other questions that will then come before us, demanding all our energies. (Hear, hear.) I believe we shall never be in our right position as a Protestant nation, until we have repealed the Act of 1829. (Loud and reiterated applause.) I look upon the repeal of the Maynooth Act as only a small instalment of what the nation has a right to demand to replace her in the position which she ought to occupy as a nation that owes its power and its prosperity to its glorious possession-the Reformation. (Loud applause.) But for the present let us look to Maynooth-let the Protestant feeling of the country be loudly expressed-let Petitions pour in from all parts-let the Legislature know that the Protestant people of this Protestant England will have the Maynooth Endowment repealed; and it may come to pass that when we have thrown overboard this great national sin, the blessing of God shall once more smile upon us as a nation, and when successive Governments shall experience the embarrassing effect of the Roman Catholic element in a Protestant Legislature, they will begin to ask themselves, "Is it not time to retrace the fatal step of 1829, and assert that England, being a Protestant nation, having a Protestant Constitution, and owing allegiance to a Protestant Sovereign, shall no longer be in the anomalous position of having men in a position to make laws for a Protestant people who owe an allegiance to the Pope of Rome, and who, by their religion, are pledged to do all in their power to secure the supremacy of Rome in this land?" (Applause.)

The Rev. Canon MILLER moved the next Resolution :— "That, considering the responsibility of nations to the Almighty as declared in holy Scripture, and the marked manner in which his blessing rested upon this nation, after its separation from Popery; it is the opinion of this Meeting that any reunion or connexion of the Church or Government of this country with the Papacy, or any national grant towards the support of that antichristian system, is inconsistent with the Protestant principles of the British Constitution, opposed to the plain teaching and warnings of holy Scripture, and calculated to bring down Divine judgments upon this nation." It is precisely at such seasons as this (said the Rev. Speaker) that we need such a rallying point and such an organization as the Protestant Association. It is precisely when the public feeling is a little ebbing, or, to speak more correctly, when it is somewhat diverted into other channels, that the value of this and kindred institutions is felt in keeping alive that flood of Protestant zeal which I believe to be essential not only to the greatness, but to the very stability of this empire. (Applause.) In the remarks which I am about to make I shall confine myself as closely as possible to one simple train of thought; but in illustrating the point which I propose to bring before you it will be necessary for me to refer to events, each of which is very familiar to your memories, but a slight reference to which will be necessary to establish my position. Allusion has already been made to the Papal aggression. I sometimes think that we are not sufficiently alive to the fact, that instead of that

act of aggression being a complete and final step, it was but the prelude to a constant series of aggressions and of arrogance which were to succeed (hear, hear); and I believe that ever since the memorable autumn of 1850, down to the very presentation of the Maynooth Report, Rome has been in every part of the world, and especially in this country, acting in perfect consistency with that policy. (Hear, hear.) In endeavouring to illustrate this assertion I will first inquire how the Act of Parliament to which the Papal aggression gave rise, has been obeyed. It appears, with respect to the Maynooth Report, that by some subtle dexterity, that most excellent and amiable man, the Earl of Harrowby, has been bamboozled by the Roman Catholics, and that in that Report, as officially presented to the House of Commons, and circulated by the Printers to the Legislature, the Bishops of Rome are recognized under the titles which they have assumed. (Hear, hear.) Now I consider it a very dangerous precedent, a very great gain for the Church of Rome in her present system of audacious and illegal aggression, to be able a few years hence to point to an official document and say, "these titles were recognised by that very House of Commons, which passed a Bill to declare those titles illegal." (Hear, hear.) I think it highly creditable to the "Times" that, while it is opposed on political grounds to agitation for the repeal of the Maynooth Endowment Act, it has not hesitated, honestly and most pungently, to denounce the garbling way in which the Maynooth Report has been treated. (Hear, hear.) Speaking of Mr. Spooner (loud applause), the "Times" says:

"He has made it his business to analyze the Report of the Maynooth Commissioners, and has brought to light as pretty a piece of management as ever fell under our notice. The good, easy Commissioners, through their Roman Catholic colleague, appear to have given the witnesses leisure and unlimited opportunities for revising, correcting, doctoring, mutually comparing, condensing, obliterating, and otherwise garbling their own evidence, to such an extent that the evidence as it stands can only be considered a series of written communications from the witnesses. Mr. Spooner has discovered that the proof sheets of the evidence have actually passed through the ordeal of Rome, and have there been corrected to the taste of the Holy See. The result is, that what we see is, in fact, the evidence of his Holiness, or at least of his Court. We now know what he says, and what he wishes his faithful children to say in Ireland. The evidence comes out not only permissu superiorum, but even, it may be said, cum privilegio."

(Hear, hear.) I mention this to show that Lord Harrowby and his colleagues have had all their labour for nothing, and that we have a couple of Blue-books, printed at the public expense, which are totally worthless as public documents. (Hear, hear.) The House of Commons ought not to sit down under such an insult and degradation (loud applause)-but a Motion ought to be made for the appointment of another Committee to ascertain how the evidence was garbled and dove-tailed, so that we should not catch the witnesses tripping in any respect. (Loud applause.) I will now pass from the Maynooth Report to another matter, to show how the law is obeyed by the Roman