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of the Constitution , which their own hands first built, and from which they havebeen so long excluded, with that badge of ecclesiastical servitude about their necks,which, in laying the foundations of the fane, they declared to he unworthy of itsprecincts ? Could they bear to resemble those children of the Jews , * who tookback into Israel the language they had learned in bondage, and thus mix the Ash-dod, the jargon of slavery, with their own old, native dialect of liberty? TheCatholics of England seem to feel upon the subject as they ought; and, by the rea-diness which they have shown to exchange the rescripts and hulls of Rome ” for theblessings of a free Constitution, they prove themselves worthy descendants of thosefounders of British liberty, who, with all their reverence for the spiritual authorityof the Pope, thought freedom too delicate a treasure to be exposed unnecessarily tohis influence, and, accordingly, sheltered it round with Provisors and Praemunire,like that fenced-in pillar at Delphi,”* which not even priests might touch.
But neither by France nor by Catholic England was the interference of Rome more effectually excluded, than by Ireland herself, during the times of her nativemonarchy. However far the learned Usher may have carried his hypothesis withrespect to the religion of the early Irish, the testimonies which he cites abundantlyprove, that, to as late a period as the twelfth century, the Pope had not exerciseda legatine authority in Ireland , nor taken any share in the election of her Bishopsor Archbishops ; and how little inclined your ancestors of those days were to abideby a papal decision, even in matters of canonical regulation, appears by their ob-stinate dissent from the Romish observance of Easter — a schism, in which theywere encouraged by some of your most celebrated Saints, whose anti-canonical bold-ness is, however, sufficiently justified by their canonization.
When deelaimers, therefore, appeal to your passions upon the danger of dis-turbing a hierarchy which is “the only nndestroyed monument of your ancientgrandeur,” you should remember; that, at the period to which alone they can re-fer, in this allusive retrospect to former greatness, your hierarchy was quite as in-dependent of Rome as the advocates of your liberties would wish to make it now; j-and that this papal interference, which some persons consider so essential, and towhich you are the only people in the world subjected at present, far from being arelic of grandeur or glory, is hut the base remnant of that anomalous proscriptionwhich so long made you aliens in your own land, and which drove you to seek, ina spiritual alliance abroad, some shelter from the storm a temporal tyranny at home.
It was not till the Reformation had added religious schism to the differencesalready existing between these countries, that Ireland was effectually thrown intothe arms of Rome ; and from that period down to the accession of his present Ma-jesty, the events of every succeeding reign have served hut to draw the tie moreclosely. Indeed, nothing could be more natural, than that the members of a per-secuted religion should turn for support, for counsel and consolation, to the visiblehead of that faith for which they were suffering —• that they should find some re-lief to their wounded pride, in the patronage of a prince who had long been formi-dable, and whose throne seemed to stand upon the line which separates this worldfrom the next, illuminated strongly by the glories of both — that, possessing no po-litical rights which foreign interference could injure, they should unreservedly aban-don their church to his guidance, and find a charm in this voluntary obedience tohim, which consoled them for their extorted submission to others. All these feel-ings were as natural and just, as the causes that produced them were monstrousand iniquitous. But those causes exist no longer; a tyranny, which disgraced alikethe inilictors and the sufferers, has gradually given way before the light of liberal-ity and conviction, and its last, slow, lingering vestige is about, I trust, to vanishfor ever; but, surely, it is worse than absurdity to expect, that the precautions andprejudices, adopted upon both sides, during that dark season of mutual ill-will,shouldnow he surrendered by one of the parties, while they are cautiously kept in fullforce by the other , and that Protestants should throw away the last fragment of the
* “ And their children spoke half in the speech of Ashdod , and could not speak the Jews ’language, hut according to the language of each people? 4 — Nehemiah , xiii, 23, 24.
” I do not, of course, mean that these instruments should be altogether excluded, as theremay occur some questions of internal discipline upon which a reference to the See of Rome would be necessary. But even this degree of intercourse should he subjected to some such re-gulations as Sir John Cox Hippisley has proposed in his pamphlet.
” Erected on the spot which they called the opnpaXog yeuag. Pausan. c. 16. —See Musciiave upon the Ion of Euripides.
I, At one period, they seem to have elected their Bishops according to the mode which waspractised at Alexandria, as early as the time of Saint Mark the Evangelist— a model which, Ithink, would satisfy any one but Cahbasutius. “Alexandriae aMarco Evangelista usque ad He-raclium et Dionysium Episcopos, Presbyteri semper unuin ex se electum in excelsiori gradu col-locatum Episcopum nominabant.“ — Hieronym. Epist. ad Evagr.
. In the tenth century, as Campion informs us, the Monarch of Ireland was allowed the exer-cise of a Veto. “To the Monarch, besides his allowance of ground and titles of honours, andother privileges in jurisdiction, was granted a negative on the nomination of Bishops at everyvocation." Book i. c. 15.
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