Page:A letter to the Right Hon. Chichester Fortescue, M.P. on the state of Ireland.djvu/76

 Trajan, of Diocletian, so in large towns in Ireland, Protestant preachers, earnest and eloquent, are even now collecting numerous congregations, aided by no endowment, filling their chapels to the brim, and eloquently unfolding to their hearers the whole counsel of God.

If the Established Church is cut down to the proportions which befit it, we may expect to see reformers occupy the positions of Polycarp and of Cyprian,

If Protestants believe, as I think they do, in the justice of their opposition to Rome, let them grant to the Roman Church equal arms, and fight, as Luther and Zuinglius fought, with argument and with zeal, exposing the abuses of the Church against which they protest. Let us not, therefore, while we do justice to Catholics, give up the title of Protestants for ourselves.

It is next said that it would be wrong to endow a religion which is not the religion of the State. And is the Church of Scotland the religion of the State? Is Maynooth a Protestant institution? But what says Dr. Johnson on this head?

So likewise John Wesley, while a most decided Protestant, would not allow it to be said that a relation of his, from having joined the Roman Catholic Church, had thereby changed his religion. He ad-