We shall conclude this history of the penal laws with stating what the opinions are, concerning them and the Catholic religion, of men entitled to the highest public veneration for their great authority as divines and

statesmen.

The following is the testimony of an Irish Protestant Bishop of Down, in 1647:*

"To this antiquity of doctrine," he says, "is annexed an uninterrupted succession of their bishops from the apostles, and particularly of their supreme bishop, St. Peter, whose personal prerogatives were so great; and the advantageous manner in which many eminent prelates of other sees have expressed themselves with regard to the Church of Rome. This prerogative includes the advantages of monarchy, and the constant benefits which are derived from that form of government.

"Nor does the multitude and variety of people who are of this persuasion, their apparent consent with elder ages, and their agreement with one another, form a less presumption in their favor. The same conclusion must be inferred from the differences which have arisen amongst their adversaries; the casualties which have happened to many of them; the oblique and sinister proceedings of some who have left their communion.

"To these negative arguments the Catholics add those of a more positive kind: the beauty and splendor of the Church of Rome, her solemn service, the stateliness and magnificence of her hierarchy, and the name of Catholic,' which she claims as her own due, and to concern no other sect of Christianity. It has been their happiness to be instrumental to the conversion of many nations. The world is witness to the piety and austerity of their religious orders, to the single life of their priests and bishops, the severity of their fasts and observances, the great reputation of many of their clergy for faith and Dr. Jeremy Taylor.

sanctity, and the known holiness of some of those persons whose institutes the religious orders follow."*

Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, perhaps the most eminent lawyer of modern times, treated the incapacities and disabilities which affected Catholics as penalties of the severest nature.

In the memorable conference between the Houses of Peers and Commons of England respecting the occasional conformity bill, the managers of the former house (amongst whom was the great Lord Somers) solemnly declared "that an honest man cannot be reduced to a more unhappy condition than to be put, by law, under an incapacity of serving his prince and his country, and that, therefore, nothing but a crime of the most detestable nature ought to put him under such a disability."

"The Irish," says Dr. Johnson, " are in a most unnatural state, for there we see the minority prevailing over the majority. There is no instance, even in the ten persecutions, of such severity as that which has been exercised over the Catholics of Ireland."

Dr. Law, Bishop of Elphin, in his speech in the Irish House of Lords on the Catholic Bill of 1793, delivered the following opinion: "He felt it his duty to declare fully his sentiments on these points, because he looked upon his Roman Catholic brethren as fellow-subjects and fellow-Christians, believers in the same God, and partners in the same redemption. Speculative differences in some points of faith from him were of no account; they and he had but one religion,-the religion of Christianity. Therefore, as children of the same Father, as travellers on the same road, and seekers of the same salvation, why not love each other as brothers? It was no part of Protestantism to persecute Catholics; and without justice to the Catholics, there could be no security for the Protestant establishment."

Statement of Penal Laws," p. 136.

Dr. Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, in a publication entitled "A Speech Intended to be Spoken," dated November 23d, 1803, says :

"If any one should contend that this is not the time for government to make concessions to Ireland, I wish him to consider whether there is any time in which it is improper for either individuals or nations to do justice; any season improper for extinguishing animosity; any occasion more suitable than the present for putting an end to heartburnings and internal discontent."

"It has been asserted," says Archdeacon Paley, "that discordancy of religions is enough to render men unfit to act together in public stations. But upon what argument or upon what experience is this assertion founded? I perceive no reason why men of different religious persuasions may not sit upon the same bench, deliberate in the same council, or fight in the same ranks, as well as men of various or opposite opinions upon any controverted topic of natural philosophy, history, or ethics.

"Why should not the legislator direct his text against political principles which he wishes to exclude, rather than encounter them through the medium of religious tenets? Why should a man, for example, be required to renounce Transubstantiation before he is admitted to an office in the state, when it might seem to be sufficient that he abjures the Pretender?"

"When, in addition to these great authorities, the names of Wyndham, Sheridan, Burke, Pitt and Fox can be added as strenuous advocates for the repeal of these penal laws, can any man be warranted in entertaining a doubt of the policy of admitting the Catholic subjects of these countries into a full enjoyment of the rights and privileges of the constitution? Can any man be justified in believing that the constitution will be changed, or that the Protestant Church and Protestant succession to the crown will be exposed to danger? The constitution rests

upon the foundation of every subject of the king having an interest in protecting it; in every subject being in possession of full security for his person, and his property and his liberty, against all invasions, whether of arbitrary power or popular outrage. This principle of universal admission into the rights of the constitution makes the principle of its preservation universal; and every exception of it, in place of securing a safeguard, creates a real danger. And for any man at this time gravely to say that the oath of supremacy, the declaration against Transubstantiation and the sacramental test, are the bulwarks of the constitution, is a matter to excite surprise, and can only be accounted for, either by an unpardonable ignorance of those things that every one may easily learn, or by the sinister influence of some private interest.” *

* Parnell.

FATHER NICHOLAS SHEEHY.

1776

FROM the petty tyranny which had at all times driven the peasantry to band together in illegal associations, from the rack-rent and the persecution of the tithe-proctors-in short, from that spirit of natural and universal resistance to injustice and oppression, sprang the terrible organization known as the Whiteboys, which caused such terror in Tipperary and Limerick, and the south of Ireland generally, in the course of the last and present centuries. They fairly overran the country at night, dressed in white shirts, from which they took their name; levelled the fences with which the landlords had enclosed the public commons for their own use; dug up the fields which had been sown in grass, and from which, most likely, some of the Whiteboys had been themselves ejected; cut down trees, and carried on such an incessant, harrassing war of destruction, that the landlords were encouraged to increase their already abundant means of persecution, and this they did with terrible effect.

In order, in the first place, to secure the aid of government and the sympathy of those in high places, the landlords sought and found a host of witnesses ready at any time to swear to the existence of a treasonable conspiracy for the restoration of the Stuarts and the Catholic religion. In the next place, they proposed to strike terror at once to the hearts of the disaffected people, by wreaking desperate vengeance on some of the faithful, self-sacrificing clergy.