d from the first betrayed its trust. Twenty years ago,
statistics not being so much in vogue, and the people of England being
in the full efflorescence of that public ignorance which permitted them
to believe themselves the most enlightened nation in the world, the
Irish 'difficulty' was not quite so well understood as at the present
day. It was then an established doctrine, and all that was necessary
for Ireland was more Protestantism, and it was supposed to be not more
difficult to supply the Irish with Protestantism than it had proved, in
the instance of a recent famine, 1822, to furnish them with potatoes.
What was principally wanted in both cases were subscriptions.

When the English public, therefore, were assured by their
co-religionists on the other side of St. George's Channel, that at last
the good work was doing; that the flame spread, even rapidly; that
not only parishes but provinces were all agog, and that both town and
country were quite in a heat of proselytism, they began to believe that
at last the scarlet lady was about to be dethroned; they loosened
their purse-strings; fathers of families contributed their zealous five
pounds, followed by every other member of the household, to the babe
in arms, who subscribed its fanatical five shillings. The affair
looked well. The journals teemed with lists of proselytes and cases of
conversion; and even orderly, orthodox people, who were firm in their
own faith, but wished others to be permitted to pursue their errors in
peace, began to congratulate each other on the prospect of our at last
becoming a united Protestant people.

In the blaze and thick of the affair, Irish Protestants jubilant, Irish
Papists denouncing the whole movement as fraud and trumpery, John Bull
perplexed, but excited, and still subscribing, a young bishop rose in
his place in the House of Lords, and, with a vehemence there unusual,
declared that he saw 'the finger of God in this second Reformation,'
and, pursuing the prophetic vein and manner, denounced 'woe to those who
should presume to lift up their hands and voices in vain and impotent
attempts to stem the flood of light that was bursting over Ireland.'

In him, who thus plainly discerned 'the finger of God' in transactions
in which her family and feelings were so deeply interested, the young
and enthusiastic Duchess of Bellamont instantly recognised the 'man of
God;' and from that moment the right reverend prelate became, in all
sp