網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

tion and perverse short-sightedness, as no language can adequately express. The powerful aversion which such a multitude may be supposed to entertain towards the established church, though an evil of a very serious magnitude, is not the greatest which the irritating system occasions: they are extremely apt to transfer the same aversion to that government which allows its faithful subjects to be degraded and oppressed on account of their religious opinions. I am far from insinuating that this is the case; I only mean to say, that the catholic code has a tendency to produce this effect.*

That such a code in former ages should exist need not appear surprising, since the infliction of punishment in those times was universally considered the most effectual method of

* "Where men are told that they must not be elected "to offices because they cannot believe in this or that spe

culative dogma of religion, they immediately become at"tached to their opinions; and the question between them " and the church becomes, not a languid question of reason, "but a lively question of passion. Men meet together and "talk of their wrongs and their persecutions; till dissent 66 gets from the skin into the bone, circulates with the blood, "and becomes incurable." Edin. Rev. Nov. 1811. If this remark be true, as it certainly is with regard to England, with how much more force does it apply to a country whose population is in circumstances similar to that of Ireland!.

[ocr errors]

reclaiming or destroying heretics: persecution was not the evil of a party but of the age; it was common alike to papist and to protestant. But since theory and practice have concurred to demonstrate that the human understanding cannot be enlightened or convinced by any discription of pains and penalties, it is truly singular that this relic of the ages of intolerance, has not been superseded by a more conciliating policy. In place of this, however, it is believed by many that the abolition of it puts the protestant church in danger. Now, is it not most evident that this notion is the result of gross ignorance? What has been the chief impediment to the progress of knowledge and protestantism in Ireland? the penal code. What has rendered four millions of people hostile to the religion of the established church? the penal code. And is the continued existence of this code necessary to the safety of a church to whom it must necessarily have made so many enemies? There is something in this supposi tion incomprehensible to those who judge according to the ordinary principles of human action. For the only way in which it seems possible to make the protestant church permanently secure, is to make it popular, to make the utility of its establishment apparent, and to render its existence perfectly compatible with the full enjoyment of every indi

1

vidual of the state, and thus to make it the object of affection and veneration, and not of dread, and hatred. But these ends cannot be attained without the perpetual abolition of the penal code; and until this be accomplished, neither the church nor the state should consider themselves out of danger.

66

"The Irish popery laws," says Mr. Newenham, by their effects on the Roman ca"tholic clergy tended still further to foment

66

religious enmity.-A very great majority of "them were observed to spring from the dregs "of the people. Youths, probably rendered "fanatic by the discipline of priests, wandered "about as mendicant scholars, and thus pro"cured the means of transporting themselves "to some foreign university; where, in a state "of the utmost degradation and exclusion "from the company of their more respectable "and enlightened fellow-students, they ob"tained a gratuitous education; wretched, no ❝doubt, in the extreme; but such as was "deemed to qualify them sufficiently for their "future ministry. On returning to their na"tive country, the principal literary acquisi❝tions of which the greater part of them "could boast, were a knowledge of monkish " latin, of scholastic theology, of obsolete and "incredible legends, and of the more sophis"tical arguments employed by those polemics

"whom the early reformers had provoked:

66

66

paltry acquisitions, which besides were often

nearly lost amidst the drudgery of their profes"sion. Ignorant in general of every branch of "polite literature; with grovelling and perverted

66

thoughts, with incorrect and obscure ideas of "moral obligation, unpractised in the relative “duties of social life, and dependent for their "sustenance on their professional labours; their "conduct as preachers of the word of God,

66

as ministers of the religion of Christ, was "to the last degree revolting in the minds "of all enlightened men; and calculated in

66

a peculiar manner, to foster the mutual "enmity of protestants and Roman catholics."*

Such are some of the evils produced by the penal code. It has involved the Irish population in extreme poverty and wretchedness; in ignorance and vice; and in inveterate hostility to the protestant cause. Indeed, it appears to me that the chief obstacle which the reformation from popery has had to encounter in Ireland, and that which has given strength to every other, is the code in question. I have elsewhere said, I confess, that without education, without an improvement of moral character, every plan of melioration, though far from

*Newenham. Nat, and Com. Ad. of Irel.

p. 180.

being useless, will have its operation obstructed, and comparatively do little good. But the truth is, the penal laws have had the effect of completely keeping the people in ignorance; cause and effect are here to be removed together; means are to be employed for increasing knowledge, while at the same time, the great obstacle to its progress is to be destroyed. If the people are left in moral darkness, and no effort made to enlighten, and elevate, and reform them, it is certain that emancipation of whatever kind can do them little good; but it is to be presumed that those who afford them the one blessing will extend to them the other also; that they will facilitate the progress of intelligence and virtue by imparting light, and liberty, and glad? ness together.

C

« 上一頁繼續 »