ous and
increasing host of reverend gentlemen, who, as regards five-sixths
of their number, contribute neither to the spiritual nor temporal
felicity of the Island? They are the despotic managers of all
primary schools, and can exact what homage they please from the
poor serf-teachers, whom they dominate and whom they keep eternally
under their thumb. They absolutely own and control all the
secondary schools, with all their private profits and all their
Government grants. In the University what they do not dominate they
mutilate. Every appointment, from dispensary doctors to members of
Parliament, must acknowledge their ownership, and pay toll to their
despotism. The County Councils must contribute patronage according
to their indications; the parish committees of the congested
districts supplement their pocket-money. They have annexed the
revenues of the industrial schools. They are engaged in
transforming the universal proprietary of Ireland in order to add
materials for their exactions from the living and the moribund. I
am told that not less than L5,000,000 are lifted from the Irish
people every year by the innumerable agencies of clerical suction
which are at work upon all parts of the Irish body, politic and
social. Nor can it be forgotten that the material loss is only a
portion of the injury. The brow-beaten and intimidated condition of
the popular action and intelligence which is necessary to this
state of things necessarily communicates its want of will and
energy to every function of the community.'"

Of course Mr. F.H. O'Donnell has been driven out of public life in
Ireland for plain speaking like this; and so would every man be who
ventured to cross swords with his Church. It aggravates the situation
immensely when we take another fact in Irish life into account.

In quite recent months Mr. Devlin, M.P., has brought into prominence a
society called the Ancient Order of Hibernians (sometimes called the
Molly Maguires) which, according to the late Mr. Michael Davitt, is "the
most wonderful pro-Celtic organisation in the world." This is a secret
society which at one time was under the ban of the Church; but quite
recently the ban has been removed, and priests are now allowed to join
the order. The present Pope is said to be its most powerful friend. It
has branches in many lands, and it is r