nant to the commiserating spirit of in continuation, observed, that the those holy writings, the perusal, of general perusal of the Bible without which he so strenuously advocates?

any specific interpretation, was in accordance with the desultory genius of the Protestant religion; on; but in Ireland there exists a Creed utterly incompatible with that wild freedom of opinion, and which is so determinate and fixed, as to leave no field for the exercise of individual judgment in the construction of the word of God. The Roman Catholic faith is built upon the Scriptures as explained

How ow would his honest nature be ex-
cited, when he saw the miserable pea-
sant cast, in a winter's night, with his
famished and naked children, upon
the world? How would his religious
principles revolt, and how would his
humanity shudder at the scenes of
desolation which are daily enacted
amongst us? Ile would then per-
ceive that his adjurations ought, to be
directed to those very men by whom he by the Church, and if the lower

has been infected with his opinion
of our country, and that he should
begin by teaching humanity to the
rich, before he taught polemics to
the poor.
In the delusion of a
benevolent fanaticism, he forgets
that the people are less in want of
Bibles than of bread. God, forbid
that he (Mr. Shiel) should suggest
that the lower orders should not re-
ceive religious education; he was of

classes were to peruse them without that explanation upon which their religion rests, it is not unlikely, that they would contract opinions inconsistent with the meaning invariably annexed by the Church to the holy writings. In one word, it is against the principles of that Church to turn the Bible into a plaything for the fancy, and submit to all the gross vagaries and monstrous imaginations of every

opinion that they should be instruct-loon. The whole dispute narrows ed in the established tenets of their itself into a question of fact. Is it, or forefathers and of their country, and is it not inconsistent with the spirit that they should be taught by means adapted to their capacities, the fixed principles of their ancient and venerable faith. Religion is peculiarly necessary to those, who, while the opulent find in the pleasures of actual existence many intense but transitory enjoyments, must look up to heaven for their only consolation. The Roman Catholic faith contains a body of moral precepts as well calculated to insure salutary results upon society as any modern theory in religion; and although Mr. Noel bad said that he was anxious to make Christians of the people, he (Mr. Shiel) hoped that the hon. gentleman would not consider him guilty of any very extravagant assumption, when he ventured to insinuate to him that a Roman Catholic might, peradventure, be a Christian. Ireland was a Roman Catholic country, and Mr. Noel, if really anxious to diffuse edu cation, would take into account the peculiar circumstances, the habits, the opinions, and the pre-dispositions of the people, in considering the means best adapted to the attainment of that important object. Mr. Shiel

of Catholicism? If it be, there is an end to the argument at least it must be admitted, that. Roman Catholics are justified in their strenuous opposition to an attempt to subvert their religion. Now, who are the persons best qualified to determine that simple fact? One would suppose the Roman Catholics themselves were as competent to decide the question, as those gentlemen who have imported into Ireland a new assortment of curiosities in belief, and seem determined to establish in this country a manufacture of religions. But independently of the objections arising from the essential principles of Catholicism, is it not absurd to make a task-book of the Testament, and to covert the Apocalypse into a primer? The Scriptures have been referred to, in order to show that it was the will of God that they should be universally perused. For this purpose, some isolated texts have been tortured into a meaning which they do not naturally bear, while those who have poured out such a torrent of citation, forget that among the

a

Jews, and under the old law, there are disastrous. The lower classes of were many parts of holy writ, which the Protestant community are driven women were never permitted to read, into a sort of Biblical insanity by this and which men were not allowed to system of excitation, and madness, peruse until after they hadattained 30 now-a-days, almost invariably asyears. When Christianity was first sumes a religious character. He established, it was impossible that (Mr. Shiel) would state a singular the Scriptures should have been ge- fact of the lunatics in the asylun in nerally read, for the art of printing this city; there were a vast number was not known, and by no other means whose mental malady was connected than that great modern discovery, with religion, and amongst those who could an extensive distribution of the laboured under that peculiar insanity, Bible be effected. A manuscript of there was not a single Catholic. This such bulk as the Old and New Tes- circumstance was stated by the betament, must have cost a sum which nevolent physician who superintended primitive Christian cannot be the hospital, in a very able work, and readily supposed to have been capa- that gentleman was himself a streble of procuring, at a period when nuous Protestant-(hear, hear, hear.) his poverty was a literal phrase. But Now, how could this fact be accounted let us try the expediency of an in- for, but by referring it to the fanadiscriminate perusal of the sacred ticism which the unrestrained pewritings, by an appeal to experience. rusal of the holy writings has proIt will scarcely be contested that duced? An ignorant man with a any great advantage can result from heated imagination, sits down to read a multifariousness in religion, yet it the Bible; he is told that he is its will not be denied, that if each indi- best interpreter, and illuminated by vidual is entitled to construe the a special grace. That special grace Scriptures, a great variety of inter- is but a lunar light, and fills his brain pretations must be the inevitable con- with madness: his delirious dreams sequence. In truth, the inventions of are taken for the visitations of the art do not keep pace with the disco- Spirit, and the images of insanity for veries in religion. New dogmas are the pictures of heaven. But the Roevery day propounded to us. They man Catholic has no room for his issue with a marvellous fecundity invention in belief-he has a clear, from every visionary brain. Nor is an open, and a long trodden path to

it to the wise and the learned that follow, and plods his way to heaven the world is indebted for these fan-without wandering through that latastic revelations-those mysterious byrinth in which the Protestant enintimations which have excited the thusiast is left without a clue-he

doubts and baffled the sagacity of the has an ample scope for the affections most illustrious of mankind, are nowsim- of the heart, but has little space plified from the summit of a sacred beer- for the excursions of the fancybarrel, and from the depth of a holy stall. his faith is regulated and certainEvery difficulty vanishes before the in- he is not cast, without chart or coinspired interpretation of an illuminated pass, upon the vague immensity

which religion offers to the mind, but steers his course in a well known tract, by a steady principle and by a fixed and unrevolving light. The Protestant embarks in the Bible upon a voyage of discovery, while the Catholic makes at once for one great

Crispin, and the seamless garment of our Saviour is turned inside out by some gifted tailor, who alternately cuts out a religion and a coat. Every village is infested with these modern prophets; one half of them are impostors, and the other their own dupes; but whether they be Cantwells or Mawworms, heaven, and by an ancient and faor both (for the union of hypocrisy miliar route. He had, perhaps, purand fanaticism is not unfrequent), sued this train of illustration too far, the consequences to religion and to and had reluctantly compared the common decency and common sense advantages of the two religions; but

F

he thought it right to observe, that might be quoted. He would ask what he had said was chiefly meant Mr. Kenny whether the reading of to apply to self-instructed innovators, the Bible by the lower orders was and not to the members of the Es-calculated to remove the common tablished Church, whose hierarchy superstition, that persons afflicted was as hostile as the Roman Catholic with epilepsy are possessed by an clergy to the reading of the unin- evil spirit? Do not the Scriptures *terpreted Scriptures. Before he sat narrate many instances of exorcism? down, he should beg leave to make It is true that it is now held that the

devil has been deprived of his prerogative; but surely a peasant in reading the Scriptures may think that what once was common is at present not impossible; and besides, this very case furnishes an argument to show that the Scriptures require a comment; for assuredly it is necessary

one or two observations on what had fallen from Mr. Kenny, who, like the pleader in Racine's comedy, had begun his oration at the commencement of the world, but had afterwards condescendingly passed to the deluge(loud laughter.) That gentleman had discovered in an injunction given to Abraham, a felicitous application to Ire- that the cessation of Satanic dominion land; Providence must have had the should be explained to the individuals Hibernian School in view in patriarchal who peruse the example of its former times. He would not attempt to pur-sway; so far from thinking that the sue him in his progress from Abra- Scriptures are calculated to disabuse

the people of this frightful infatuation, their perusal of them without a comment appeared likely to confirm their superstition. He regretted that Mr. Kenny had alluded to this pain

ham to Moses, from Moses to king David, and from David down to Timothy, but he should follow Mr. Kenny from Jerusalem to Wexford, and beg to observe on the animadversions which he thought it proper ful incident, because in doing so, he to denounce upon a recent and un- had expressed a detestation of the fortunate transaction. That event Catholic religion, which was utterly was deeply to be deplored, but it at variance with the repeated dishad been greatly misrepresented. claimers of proselytism. If he, and It was utterly untrue that the parents those who acted with him, felt so of the child had beheld its immolation. deep an abhorrence of Popery, they It was sworn by the father, that the could not fail to exert themselves to crowd was so great that he was rescue the people from so disastrous prevented from app approaching the a belief. It could not be credited priest, and that he did not even see that their execration would not inwhat was going on. In the next voluntarily ooze out. It was not place, Mr. Kenny had imputed a belief possible that such a metamorphosis

in the powers of exorcism to the Roman Catholicpeasantry, as it resulted from their religion; but he (Mr. Shiel) should state a most important fact, sworn by the witnesses of the crown-namely, that Protestants as well as Catholics were present at one of those deplorable instances of human folly, and that a Mrs. Winter and her daughter, both Protestants, knelt down and called on God to assist Father Carroll in working the miracle. (Hear, hear, hear.) To attribute to

should take place in Mr. Kenny, as that on one side of the poor man's threshold he should be a strenuous hater of Popery, but the moment he had entered his ha bitation to administer to his children a profusion of spiritual belief, he should be transmuted to an impassioned lover of the scarlet-vested damsel of Babylon. One advantage, however, had accrued from the honesty of Mr. Kenny's denunciations, and indeed from the whole

Roman Cotholics an exclusive belief tone of the proceedings. It was in demoniacal possession, was most now clear that proselytism was their unjust. Doctor Warburton had substantial object, and that educamaintained the doctrine, and it was tion was only an instrument for the one for which scriptural authority | accomplishment of this darling pro_ ject. He begged pardon of the So- [not be mentioned in the presence of ciety for having so long trespassed a virtuous woman without exciting on them, and he was bound to say, horror. Should a woman be per that however great their collision of mitted to read in her chamber what

she would tremble to hear at her domestic board? And shall her eyes be polluted with what her ears shall not be profaned? Shall she read

scheme be abandoned; let the Irish peasant live and die in the religion of his forefathers; let the child rise up from the cradle in the same creed with which the father descended into the grave, and let the propagators of the modern dogmas who send their missionaries among us, remember the denunciation from St. Matthew, "Woe unto you, ye Scribes, ye Pharisees, ye hypocrites; ye compass the sea and earth to make a single proselyte, and when you have made him, he is twofold more a child of hell than before."

opinion, he had been heard with liberality and kindness. He should not abuse it by entering at large into another topic, upon which, before ladies, it might not be delicate to what she dare not hear? Shall she dwell. He alluded to the many con over and revolve what she would passages of Scripture which were rather die than utter? But these written with a force, and he might were painful topics. They were say, with such nakedness of diction, forced into debate by those, who, in as rendered them unfit for indiscri- their anxiety to annihilate the reliminate perusal. There were parts gion of the country, forgot the risk of the Old Testament in which to which its morality was exposed. images of voluptuousness were pre- And what good could the achievesented to the mind, on which the ment of this object after all effect? imagination of a youthful female In ceasing to be Catholics, were ought not to be permitted to repose. they certain that the people would To those passages he should not, of continue Christians ? Let this absurd course, refer, or point out the forbidden fruit. But he would venture to assert, that the Odes of Anacreon do not display more luxury of imagination, or combine more sensual associations than parts of the Old Testament, the perusal of which by women, was wisely forbidden by the Jewish church. It was idle to say that the grace of God would prevent the passions from taking fire. Our daily Orison contains a prayer founded upon human frailty, that we should be preserved not only from guilt but from temptation; and if the passages to which he alluded were unfit for an open citation in that assembly, he should not conceive them the appropriate theme of the virgin's meditations: The warm fancy of a young and blooming girl could not intrude into the sacred bowers of oriental poetry without peril. Besides the objections arising from the warm colouring of the divine pastoral of Solomon, which was a mystic representation of the conjugal union of the Church, with which unmarried ladies need not be made prematurely familiar; it should be recollected that the and he owned he thought that there Bible contained details of atro - was a little of profane imagination in city at which human nature shud- his religion. He (Mr. N.) was caredered. Part of the holy writings con-less of sarcasms, because he was insisted of a narration of facts which fluenced by the high motives of doing were of such a kind, that they could good, and of extending to others the

Mr. NOEL rose to reply to Mr. Shiel, in a speech of great eloquence, to which we cannot hope to do justice. He said, that however he might admire his abilities, he could not but lament his errors, which talent could not redeem; and although he might be inferior to Mr. Shiel in those oratorical resources, with which habit had made that gentleman familiar, he hoped he was his equal in candour and his match in sincerity. The gentleman had, shewn himself much better acquainted with rhetoric than with the true spirit of Christianity,

F2

the

that fanaticism had done in England what infidelity had effected in France. Did his friend, the Scotch Captain, forget the sale by his own countrymen of Charles the First? (Loud laughter.) Mr. Kenny had thought proper to vent his mirth upon the misfortune of Mr. Carroll. -How soon the parson undertook to roast the priest when he had him once on the spit; with what pious rancour he turned him round, and delighted in the popish dripping! The parson should not court a comparison with the priest. Where was the parson found? He was a shepherd that visited his flock at shearing time. Where was the priest? At the side of the bed of straw, impregnated with typhus, and performing the duties of his sacred religion with infection and death about him. Mr. O'Connell then entered into the argument upon the distribution of the Bible, and referred to Scripture and to the authority of the Fathers with great felicity, to establish his tenets.

benefit of those holy writings from gentlemen, he said, came to educate which he had derived so much con- the Irish women, let them look to solation. The Learned Gentleman their own. By the Parliamentary had ridiculed the variety of religious Reports on the Poor Laws, it appearopinions in England. Let him look ed that 19 women out of 20 in Engto the infidelity of of France, and to the land were mothers a month after marsuperstition of Italy, whose religion riage. Their "marriage baked meats was like the exhalation of its pesti- did coldly furnish forth the christening lential marshes. It was the mal aria tables." The gentleman, in speakof the mind. He should not blush ing of the French Revolution, forgot at the comparison of his own country, and of that country he would say, that it was influenced by a real anxiety to advance the happiness of Ireland. He was sorry to hear Mr. Shiel say that the Roman Catholic religion was not founded upon the traditions of man. He owned that he preferred the word of God; never could any injury arise from the sincere perusal of the Holy Scripture, that was not meant for the exclusive use of priests, but for all mankind. It was not in the synagogue that our Redeemer preached the Gospel, it was among the poor, the lowly, and the humble minded. As to the objection that there were passages in the Bible unfit for general perusal, it had been repeatedly refuted; no pure mind could ever be soiled by the Word of God, and when did man or woman ever rise from its perusal with a vitiated spirit? He had no antipathy to the Catholic religion, but to the superstition which had been incrusted upon it. He could not even think of such a man as Fenelon, and other members of that church, without admiration; but it was from the Scriptures that they derived their in England. There might be a shade spirit, if not their tenets. The hon. of difference; but the same great Gentleman proceeded with so mild body of Christians and Scriptural and persuasive a tone to enforce his truth was to be found in the diversiopinions, as to produce a sentiment ties of each. He strongly condemned of deep and general respect among all who heard him. He concluded amidst loud applause.

Mr. POPE followed Mr. O'Connell, and said, it was a mistake to suppose that such a variety of belief existed

the language in which Mr. Shiel had spoken of the impropriety of allowing women to read the Scriptures. He was greatly mistaken if he supposed that the word of God was the

Mr. O'CONNELL replied to Mr. Noel in a powerful speech, in which argument, ridicule, and eloquence source of sensual thought, however were blended together. We can only his own imagination might throw give an abstract of his first speech: poison into the sacred springs of holy He ridiculed the idea of English truth. In no class could the reading morality, and referred to the details of the Bible be attended with such of frightful atrocity in the English results as he had described: much trials at the Assizes, and, above all, less among the lower orders, whose to the Parliamentary Reports. The fancy was not so excitable as that of

1