preference, where
almost all the parts were outrages on the rights of humanity and the
laws of Nature.

Suppose an atheist, playing the part of a bigot, should be in power
again in that country, do you believe that he would faithfully and
religiously administer the trust of appointing pastors to a church
which, wanting every other support, stands in tenfold need of ministers
who will be dear to the people committed to their charge, and who will
exercise a really paternal authority amongst them? But if the superior
power was always in a disposition to dispense conscientiously, and like
an upright trustee and guardian of these rights which he holds for those
with whom he is at variance, has he the capacity and means of doing it?
How can the Lord-Lieutenant form the least judgment of their merits, so
as to discern which of the Popish priests is fit to be made a bishop? It
cannot be: the idea is ridiculous. He will hand them over to
lords-lieutenant of counties, justices of the peace, and other persons,
who, for the purpose of vexing and turning to derision this miserable
people, will pick out the worst and most obnoxious they can find amongst
the clergy to set over the rest. Whoever is complained against by his
brother will be considered as persecuted; whoever is censured by his
superior will be looked upon as oppressed; whoever is careless in his
opinions and loose in his morals will be called a liberal man, and will
be supposed to have incurred hatred because he was not a bigot.
Informers, tale-bearers, perverse and obstinate men, flatterers, who
turn their back upon their flock and court the Protestant gentlemen of
the country, will be the objects of preferment. And then I run no risk
in foretelling that whatever order, quiet, and morality you have in the
country will be lost. A Popish clergy who are not restrained by the most
austere subordination will become a nuisance, a real public grievance of
the heaviest kind, in any country that entertains them; and instead of
the great benefit which Ireland does and has long derived from them, if
they are educated without any idea of discipline and obedience, and then
put under bishops who do not owe their station to their good opinion,
and whom they cannot respect, that nation will see disorders, of which,
bad as things are, it has yet no idea. I do not say this, as thinking
the leading men in Ireland would exercise this trust worse than others.
Not at all. No man, no set of m