e most notable illustration. Even in the
Protestant city of Belfast we have seen a faithful wife deserted and her
children spirited away from her, in obedience to this cruel decree. And
we have seen an executive afraid to do its duty, because Rome had spoken
and justified the outrage. Those who know intimately what is happening
here are aware of case after case in which husband or wife is living in
daily terror of similar interference, and also know that Protestants
married to Roman Catholics, and living in the districts where the latter
are in overwhelming majority, often find it impossible to stand against
the odium arising from a bigoted and hostile public opinion. Nor does
such interference stop here. Only a few weeks ago the kidnapping of a
young wife by Roman Catholic ecclesiastics was prevented only by the
brave and prompt action of her husband. In this case a sworn deposition,
made in the presence of a well-known magistrate and fully attested, has
been published, and no attempt at contradiction or explanation has been
made. Let none imagine the _Ne Temere_ question is extinct in Ireland.
It is at this moment a burning question. Under Home Rule it would create
a conflagration. And surely there is reason for the indignation of
Protestants. Here we see the most solemn contract into which a man or
woman can enter broken at the bidding of a system which claims supreme
control over all human relations, public and private; and this, not for
the maintenance of any moral principle, but to secure obedience to a
disciplinary regulation which is regarded as of so little moral value
that it is not enforced in any country in which the Government is strong
enough to protect its subjects.

As if to define with perfect clearness, in the face of the modern world,
the traditional claim of the Roman See, there has issued from the
Vatican, within the last few weeks, a Decree which sets the Roman clergy
above the law of the land. This ordinance, which is issued _motu
proprio_ by the Pope, is the re-enactment and more exact definition of
an old law. It lays down the rule that whoever, without permission from
any ecclesiastical authority, summons any ecclesiastical persons to a
lay tribunal and compels them to attend publicly such a court, incurs
instant excommunication. The excommunication is automatic, and
absolution from it is specially reserved to the Roman Pontiff. This fact
adds enormously to the terror of it, especially among a p