support the party which represents the Dissenters, and oppose that which represents the Established Church, when the former sect is much more anti-Catholic than the latter? As politicians we have nothing to say to the theological opinions of either. The interests of the Established Church are bound up with privilege, therefore they refuse to treat us as their equals. The interests of the Dissenters are against privilege, and therefore in favour of the entire equality of all. The one invoke the assistance of the State to maintain their preëminence, the other deprecate all State interference in religious matters, because, where the State does interfere, it necessarily interferes against them. This is obviously true, but parties are not governed by logic, but by interest, and often by prejudice. Politicians instinctively dislike any real spiritual power, and therefore they dislike us. They find us an obstacle in their way. Mr. Fox's dictum, that "power is the only security for political liberty," is therefore especially applicable to us. We have influence when we have power. Every government will neglect and ill-treat us if it dare. Individuals there are-we rejoice to believe that there are many such—who wish to treat us fairly simply from a love of justice. We could mention not a few names of strong Protestants who have sacrificed every thing they most prized rather than consent to violate in our regard the principles of civil and religious liberty. But certainly the age of party chivalry is gone. We see before our eyes the Conservative party afraid to protest against a revolutionary foreign policy, because they believe it to be popular; among them, at the present crisis, the principles of Edmund Burke have not found a single exponent, and those who call themselves the disciples of Mr. Pitt have looked on in ignominious silence while the Government has stamped with its approbation acts from which the truthful English spirit of Mr. Fox, even in the excitement of the first French revolution, would have revolted from as base and would have condemned as anarchical. As to the Government, il n'y a personne qui change si souvent d'idées fixes-in other words, they have no idées fixes at all. Talk of Abbé Sièyes constitutions, all ticketed and all ready for every emergency, why in the Foreign Office there is a whole repository of contradictory principles,-some for the Ionian Islands, some for Turkey, some for Rome,-ready to be applied, as the occasion may demand, to every possible combination of circumstances.

In the East the remnant of those Christian races which have not yet been massacred by the Sultan's troops, cry out for emancipation from the Turkish yoke. Lord John

Russell and Lord Palmerston declare that the integrity of the Turkish empire must be maintained at any price. In Italy, according to them, the popular will is to override every law. Within the last few weeks Mr. Gladstone expressed his astonishment at any one daring to invoke the principles of international law in behalf of King Francis II., the son of that sovereign who had broken the solemn oath by which he had engaged to give a constitution to his subjects.

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That same Mr. Gladstone had, in 1850 (the sovereign who, as he alleges-into the truth of the assertion we don't enter had thus absolved his subjects from their allegiance by his perjury then reigning), declared that "the more we may be tempted to sympathise with Sicily, the less we "admire Neapolitan institutions and usages of government, "the more tenacious, as he contended, we should be of our duty to do them full justice, the more careful that we do "not, because we differ from them, impair, in their case, the application of those great and sacred principles that govern "and harmonise the intercourse between states, and from "which you can never depart without producing mischiefs by the violation of the rule a thousandfold greater than any benefit you may promise yourself to achieve in the special instance."

About the same time Lords Palmerston and John Russell were emphatic in their declarations that the temporal power of the Pope-which they now proclaim to be a nuisance which must be abated-ought to be maintained. Are we wrong in believing that men who enunciate such opposite principles have no principles at all? God help us if we have nothing more firm or stable to rest upon than their moral convictions! We console ourselves by meditating on the elasticity of their consciences. They profess to look upon the Pope's weakness as a proof that it is God's will that His temporal power should be abolished, and that the oldest throne in Europe should be overthrown. Depend upon it, if we regain our natural strength and power, they will perceive in that fact a providential intimation that our feelings ought no longer to be wounded, and that a just weight should be given to us in the councils of the empire. They will reverently bow their heads and carry out the divine decree, if the doing so appears to be the only means of preventing the faithful from languishing in opposition while the impious Tory crew possess the earth. As to that question which most occupies now the thoughts and wounds the hearts of

Catholics, as to the insults and injuries which our Holy Father so meekly endures, it was Lord Derby's government that first proposed to despoil him of a portion of his states, and the present government has bettered their example; but neither the one nor the other cabinet would have dared thus to act if there had been sixty or seventy Catholic representatives, party men, as others are in ordinary times, bound together in a vigorous union in sight of a great emergency, ready to avenge any insult offered to their religion or its earthly chief. Such a body would have been able to insist on the only thing that they could reasonably ask for in a country where they are a minority, real non-intervention, perfect and scrupulous neutrality.

There are some among the Catholics of these kingdoms who turn, through indolence or through disdain, from political strife, and inquire what advantages the great mass of Catholics have gained from their admission to political power, and from the sacrifices they have made in electoral strifes.

No doubt they have often been deceived by those who sought their suffrages. Personal ambition has put on the mask of patriotism, and vows to defend religion or to promote social improvement have resulted in the selfish abandonment of both.

Such deception and such perjury there will always be. The histories of all parties and of all countries are full of them. But who ever thinks of renouncing marriage because some wives have been unfaithful, or of not settling his property because some trustees have been robbers? It is sometimes asked, by those who point to the miseries and religious persecutions to which the Catholic poor are subjected, what has been gained by Emancipation for any except the few who have seats in either house of Parliament, and those friends or followers for whom they have procured places? Such an objection goes very deep. It strikes at the very root of political liberty, and resolves the question of constitutions and forms of government into the consideration of material well-being. Food and lodging satisfy brutes. It makes no difference to the animal creation of Warsaw or of Bulgaria what flag floats over the habitations of their masters; but those masters consider that man does not live by bread alone, and the poorest peasant among them is ready to risk his little all for his religion and his country.

But is it true that, judging even by this low material standard, the few only among the Catholics have been benefited by a participation in political power? Has the magic

The

touch of liberty had no effect in elevating, not only our moral, but also our social position? Is ours the only country in which the struggle of life is not carried on more successfully by freemen than by serfs? There is not one town in England with a large Catholic population, there is not one county or town in Ireland, in which not only churches, and convents, and schools have not sprung up since 1829, but also Catholics have not risen in the social scale,-emerging from that dead level of degradation and of inferiority in which a long night of slavery had enveloped them, acquiring property and habits of self-respect and self-reliance, and successfully asserting their equality with the Protestants around them. Such transformations are not accomplished in a moment. habits and demeanour burnt in by long ages of ill-treatment, require more than one generation to be eradicated. All we ask is, that any one through whose mind have passed timid and desponding thoughts should open his eyes. Let him look upon the position of Catholics now, and let him compare it with their position when O'Connell won the battle of Emancipation. Any one who, in 1829, had drawn a picture of us as we now are, and had said, 'Such will be Catholic power and Catholic social influence thirty years. hence,' would have been looked upon as a vain dreamer. No faith in the vivifying power of liberty could have anticipated for us any approximation to the reality. We have the power in our own hands. We may continue to increase in strength, and we may win back much of which our ancestors were violently deprived. Upon the other hand, we may abandon the struggle like spoiled children, because we do not obtain all we want, or consider ourselves entitled to, at once, and we may relapse into obscurity and impotence. In our hands the future position of the Catholic Church in these countries, under God, is placed. Every one on whom the franchise has been conferred has had a duty imposed on him for the exercise of which he is responsible. We may, if we please, sacrifice our rights. No man, without sin, can decline to perform a duty: God has placed in the hands of almost every one of our readers a portion of the power which rules this mighty realm. We cannot consent to be as foreigners, enjoying the material advantages, but not controlling the destinies of our native land; nor are our duties and our responsibilities confined even within its limits. The whole civilised world is now as it were one vast assembly," the parliament of men, the federation of the world," in which the voice and the influence of the statesman affects not his own country only, but the welfare of the whole. Lord Palmerston the other

day, at Tiverton, said that England had changed the fate of Italy, although not a single English soldier had taken part in the Italian struggle, and he and Cavour and Mazzini understand this well. If the confederation of revolution and impiety is widely spread, and acts together as if moved by one soul, and by its baneful influence perplexes nations; if "the ark of God is in the field,

And all around the alien armies sweep,"

are not those who are the enemies of anarchy, and the friends of social order and of true liberty, to band themselves together also, to be as active and as energetic for good as their adversaries are for evil? In every age there is a tendency to exaggerate the relative importance of its own trials and difficulties. We cannot, however, believe that we exaggerate when we say, that not for centuries has there been a crisis so pregnant with good or with evil, with blessing or with cursing, as the present. Never were the confines of good and of evil more clearly defined. Never were there such world-wide combinations. The conflict is not confined to any one country. It is no mere skirmish; the battle-field is the whole world, and the engagement reaches along the whole line. The importance of the issue to be decided it is impossible to exaggerate, or even completely to realise. Is the Church to be free, or is the State to be absolute? Is the law of God to be trammeled, modified, adapted to the will or the caprice of man, or is it to have free course? Is right or is might to be the arbiter of nations? In one word, is the world to progress and to develop according to the Christian idea, or is it to relapse into pagan habits of thought? In the presence of such momentous issues, can we refuse to make great sacrifices, sacrifices of ease, of quiet, of peculiar views, of resentments, of party interests? If such sacrifices were never more required, never, we rejoice to believe, were they, if generously made, more certain to be rewarded with victory, because, never since the day of Pentecost, were the children of the Church more entirely of one mind. We have no secret enemies in our own bosoms; the enemy is before us.

We have no right to dictate to any one. We have no jurisdiction even over those who do us the favour to peruse our pages. We can appeal only to their reason and their consciences. To reason and to conscience we do appeal. We appeal through them to the Catholics of these kingdoms not to neutralise one another's efforts by intestine division; to forget past differences, and injuries, and disappointments; above all, to banish national prejudices, and to resolve, in