Page:The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Volume 1).djvu/375

Rh that they do.—I think they appear in a better light as perjurers, than believers in a falsehood so hateful and uncharitable as this.—I propose unlimited toleration, or rather the destruction, both of toleration and intoleration. The act permits certain people to worship God after such a manner, which, in fact, if not done, would as far as in it lay prevent God from hearing their address. Can we conceive any thing more presumptuous, and at the same time more ridiculous, than a set of men granting a licence to God to receive the prayers of certain of his creatures. Oh Irishmen! I am interested in your cause; and it is not because you are Irishmen or Roman Catholics, that I feel with you and feel for you; but because you are men and sufferers. Were Ireland at this moment, peopled with Brahmins, this very same address would have been suggested by the same state of mind. You have suffered not merely for your religion, but some other causes which I am equally desirous of remedying. The Union of England with Ireland has withdrawn the Protestant aristocracy, and gentry from their native country, and with these their friends and connections. Their resources are taken from this country, although they are dissipated in another; the very poor people are most infamously oppressed by the weight of burden which the superior ranks lay upon their shoulders. I am no less desirous of the reform of these evils (with many others) than for the Catholic Emancipation.

Perhaps you all agree with me on both these subjects, we now come to the method of doing these things. I agree with the Quakers so far as they disclaim violence, and trust their cause wholly and solely to its own truth.—If you are convinced of the truth of your cause, trust