hment under Mr.
Gladstone's leadership, the writer has no hesitation in saying that the
dread of Roman tyranny is now far more vivid and, as a motive, far more
urgent than it was at those epochs. Protestants are now convinced, as
never before, that Home Rule must mean Rome Rule, and that, should it be
forced upon them, in spite of all their efforts, they will be face to
face with a struggle for liberty and conscience such as this land has
not witnessed since the year 1690. That such should be the conviction of
one-fourth of the people of Ireland, and that fourth by far the most
energetic portion of its inhabitants, is a fact which politicians may
well lay to heart.

Approaching this subject as one whose duties give him the spiritual
oversight of more than 200,000 of the Protestants of Ireland--members of
the Church of Ireland, and who has had twenty-seven years of experience
as a clergyman in Ireland, both in the north and in the south, the
writer may venture to speak with some confidence as to the mind of the
people among whom he has worked for so long. In doing so, he feels at
liberty to say that he is one who has always avoided religious
controversy, and who has ever made it his endeavour to be tolerant and
considerate of the feelings and convictions of others. He has a deep
regard for his Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen, and recognises to the
full their many excellent qualities and the sincerity of their religion.

It is possible to bring to a single point the reasons which make Irish
Unionists so apprehensive as regards the religious difficulty under Home
Rule. Their fears are not concerned with any of the special dogmas of
the Roman Church. But they recognise, as people in England do not, the
inevitable tendency of the consistent and immemorial policy of the
Church of Rome in relation to persons who refuse to submit to her
claims. They know that policy to be one of absolute and uncompromising
insistence on the exacting of everything which she regards as her right
as soon as she possesses the power. They know that, for her, toleration
is only a temporary expedient. They know that professions and promises
made by individual Roman Catholics and by political leaders, statements
which to English ears seem a happy augury of a good time coming, are of
no value whatever. They do not deny that such promises and guarantees
express a great deal of good intention, but they know that above the
individual, whether he be layma