against their government;--if it were
an article of my belief that a priestly absolution without sorrow for my
sins, or a resolution of amendment, had the power of a charm to reclaim
me to the state of unoffending infancy, and enable me, like Milton's
devil, to leap from the gulf of sin into paradise without purifying my
heart or changing my affections;--if it were an article of my faith that
the grace of an indulgence could give me the extraordinary privilege of
sinning without guilt or offending without punishment;--if it inculcated
any maxim evasive of moral rectitude:--in a word, if the features of my
religion corresponded with the pictures drawn of it in flying pamphlets
and anniversary declamations, I would consider myself and the rest of my
fraternity as downright idiots, wickedly stupid, to remain one hour in a
state which deprives us of our rights as citizens, whereas such an
accommodating scheme would make them not only attainable, but certain.

"Your correspondent does me the honor to rank me with Lord Dunboyne,
formerly titular Bishop of Cork, and with Mr. Kirwan. If they have
changed their religion from a thorough conviction of its falsehood,
they have done well. It is the duty of every sincere admirer after truth
to comply with the immediate dictates of his conscience, in embracing
that religion which he believes most acceptable to God. Deplorable,
indeed, must be the state of the man who lives in wilful error. For,
however an all-wise God may hereafter dispose of those who err in their
honesty, and whose error, is involuntary and invincible, surely no road
can be right to the wretch who walks in it against conviction. A
thorough conviction, then, that I am in the right road to eternal life,
if my moral conduct corresponds with my speculative belief, keeps me
within the pale of my Church in direct opposition to my temporal
interest; and no Protestant nobleman or gentleman of my acquaintance
esteems me the less for adhering to my creed, knowing that a Catholic
and an honest man are not contradictory terms.

"I do not consider Lord Dunboyne as a model after whom I should copy.
With his silver locks, and at an age when persons who had devoted
themselves to the service of the altar in their early days, should, like
the Emperor Charles V, rather think of their coffins than the nuptial
couch, that prelate married a young woman. Whether the glowing love of
truth or Hymen's torch induced him to change the Roman P