dare refuse anything
which they may demand perseveringly and unitedly. The people who have
been guided by them, and saved by them for so many centuries, will
follow as they lead. If their tone of intellectual culture is elevated,
the people will become elevated also; and we shall hear no more of those
reproaches, which are a disgrace to those who utter them, rather than to
those of whom they are uttered. Let our people be taught to appreciate
something higher than a mere ephemeral literature; let them be taught to
take an interest in the antiquities and the glorious past of their
nation; and then let them learn the history of other peoples and of
other races. A high ecclesiastical authority has declared recently that
"ecclesiastics do not cease to be citizens," and that they do not
consider anything which affects the common weal of their country is
remote from their duty. The clergy of the diocese of Limerick, headed by
their Dean, and, it must be presumed, with the sanction of their Bishop,
have given a tangible proof that they coincide in opinion with his Grace
the Archbishop of Westminster. The letter addressed to Earl Grey by that
prelate, should be in the hands of every Irishman; and it is with no
ordinary gratification that we acknowledge the kindness and
condescension of his Grace in favouring us with an early copy of it.
This letter treats of the two great questions of the day with admirable
discretion. As I hope that every one who reads these pages possesses a
copy of the pamphlet, I shall merely draw attention to two paragraphs in
it: one in which Fenianism is treated of in that rational spirit which
appears to have been completely lost sight of in the storm of angry
discussion which it has excited. On this subject his Grace writes: "It
would be blindness not to see, and madness to deny, that we have entered
into another crisis in the relation of England and Ireland, of which
'98, '28, and '48 were precursors;" and he argues with clearness and
authority, that when Englishmen once have granted justice to Ireland,
Ireland will cease to accuse England of injustice.
To one other paragraph in this remarkable letter, I shall briefly
allude: "I do not think Englishmen are enough aware of the harm some
among us do by a contemptuous, satirical, disrespectful, defiant,
language in speaking of Ireland and the Irish people." From peculiar
circumstances, the present writer has had more than ordinary
opportunities of ver
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