Page:A letter to the Right Hon. Chichester Fortescue, M.P. on the state of Ireland.djvu/58

 exists) but its tendency to promote in that community good order and virtue, religious knowledge and edification. But to accomplish this end in any satisfactory manner, it must be their church, and not merely that of the Government; it should exist for the people, and in the people, and with the people.

Nay, even one of the most distinguished among the authors of the 'Essays on the Irish Church,' holding, as it were, a brief for the Establishment, is so impressed by what he sees around him that he writes thus:—

So that, if we could improve and change the current of these political tendencies, we should have the obligations of moral duty enforced among a population of four millions and a half, instead of among seven hundred thousand only, without any admixture of disloyalty and disaffection. Is it not worth while to try the experiment of equality of all religions before we give up the task in despair? Should we not feel a strong sympathy with any religious body in Europe placed in the situation of the Catholic Church in Ireland?

These facts have produced a most unfavourable impression on the minds of the most liberal men—