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 tabernacle and bring back Knowles to supper. The service was startling, stretching to the very borders of burlesque; in the prayer the preacher held a colloquy with his Creator which was probably unique in pulpit oratory. 'O God!' he said, 'who has graciously selected Thy servant to do Thy work, and peremptorily drawn him away from the fascinating pleasures of this world for Thy service, be pleased to ordain,' &c. I never heard Mr. Knowles again."

The leaders of the League did not mistake their position. The high tide of success was ebbing fast. They knew they had now opposed to them three great social forces—the Executive, the bulk of the Catholic bishops, and the entire landed gentry; and with them perhaps only a minority of the people, but a minority which comprised the best priests and the most intelligent farmers and traders in the island. There still came to the Council meetings aged priests and dauntless curates, who for the sake of the people were facing an hostility which would certainly thwart and might possibly ruin them. They believed that Dr. Cullen was more of an Italian than an Irishman, and so wholly immersed in ecclesiastical politics as to leave no place for patriotism. They saw with shame that he threw the protection of the Church around some of the worst men in the community, and employed the authority of the Holy See for purposes which it could never have been designed to promote. But they knew also that they had won the General Election against the same hostility, a little less pronounced; that they had carried their Bill to a second reading in the Parliament, which now repudiated it. They felt persuaded that the fate of an entire generation of honest husbandmen depended on their success, and they resolved to make another rally with all the strength that remained in them. Conference had become the established agency for maintaining a constant connection with public opinion, and a Conference was called for the 5th of October.

When it met it became plain that there were now two parties face to face one which still upheld the fidelity of Messrs. Sadleir and Keogh, and another which saw in them the worst enemies of the cause. At the outset Dr. M'Knight declared that there was one member to whom the farmers owed more than to any other man in Parliament, and that