And hope hung out its symbol to the innocent and good, For the Cross o'er the moss of the pointed summit stood!

XII.

There may it stand forever, while this symbol doth impart To the mind one glorious vision, or one proud throb through the heart;

While the breast needeth rest may the gray old temples last, Bright prophets of the future, as preachers of the past!

D. F. M'CARTHY.

50. THE IRISH DISTURBANCE BILL.

[The annals of political eloquence offer no example of a triumph like that gained by the eloquence of O'Connell, when he wrenched from England the first instalment of long-deferred justice in the Act of Catholic Emancipation.]

I

Do not rise to fawn or cringe to this house. I do not rise to supplicate you to be merciful towards the nation to which I belong-towards a nation which, though subject to England, yet is distinct from it. It is a distinct nation: it has been treated as such by this country, as may be proved by history, and by seven hundred years of tyranny.

2. I call upon this house, as you value the liberty of Eng land, not to allow the present nefarious bill to pass. In it are involved the liberties of England, the liberty of the press, and of every other institution dear to Englishmen.

3. Against the bill I protest in the name of this Irish people, and in the face of heaven. I treat with scorn the puny and pitiful assertions that grievances are not to be com plained of, that our redress is not to be agitated! for, in such cases, remonstrances cannot be too strong, agitation cannot be too violent, to show to the world with what injustice our fair claims are met, and under what tyranny the people suffer.

4. There are two frightful clauses in this bill. The one which does away with trial by jury, and which I have called upon you to baptize: you call it a court-martial

a mere nickname; I stigmatize it as a revolutionary tribunal. What, in the name of heaven, is it, if it is not a revolutionary tribunal?

5. It annihilates the trial by jury; it drives the judge from his bench, the man who, from experience, could weigh the nice and delicate points of a case,-who could discriminate between the staightforward testimony and the suborned evidence, who could see, plainly and readily, the justice or injustice of the accusation.

6. It turns out this man who is free, unshackled, unprejudiced,-who has no previous opinions to control the clear exercise of his duty. You do away with that which is more sacred than the throne itself; that for which your king reigns, your lords deliberate, your commons assemble.

7. If ever I doubted before of the success of our agitation for repeal, this bill, this infamous bill, the way in which it has. been received by the house, the manner in which its opponents have been treated, the personalities to which they have been subjected, the yells with which one of them has this night been greeted,—all these things dissipate my doubts, and tell me of its complete and early triumph.

8. Do you think those yells will be forgotten? Do you suppose their echo will not reach the plains of my injured and insulted country; that they will not be whispered in her green valleys, and heard from her lofty hills?

9. Oh, they will be heard there! Yes; and they will not be forgotten. The youth of Ireland will bound with indignation; they will say, "We are eight millions; and you treat us thus, as though we were no more to your country than the isle of Guernsey or of Jersey !"

10. I have done my duty; I stand acquitted to my conscience and my country; I have opposed this measure throughout; and I now protest against it as harsh, oppressive, uncalled for, unjust; as establishing an infamous precedent by retaliating crime against crire; as tyrannous, cruelly and vindictively tyrannous.

O'CONNELL

CAN

51. RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

AN any thing be more absurd and untenable than the argument of the learned gentleman, when you see it stripped of the false coloring he has given to it? First, he alleges that the Catholics are attached to their religion with a bigoted zeal. I admit the zeal, but I utterly deny the big otry.

2. He proceeds to insist that these feelings, on our part, justify the apprehensions of Protestants. The Catholics, he says, are alarmed for their Church; why should not the Protestants be alarmed, also, for theirs? The Catholic desires safety for his religion; why should not the Protestant require security for his? Hence, he concludes that, merely because the Catholic desires to keep his religion free, the Protestant is thereby justified in seeking to enslave it.

3. He says that our anxiety for the preservation of our Church vindicates those who deem the proposed arrangement necessary for the protection of theirs ;-a mode of reasoning perfectly true, and perfectly applicable, if we sought any inter ference with, or control over, the Protestant Church,—if we asked or required that a single Catholic should be consulted upon the management of the Protestant Church, or of its revenues or privileges.

4. But the fact does not bear him out; for we do not seek nor desire, nor would we accept of, any kind of interference with the Protestant Church. We disclaim and disavow any kind of control over it. We ask not, nor would we allow, any Catholic authority over the mode of appointment of their clergy. Nay, we are quite content to be excluded forever from even advising his majesty with respect to any matter relating to or concerning the Protestant Church,-its rights, its properties, or its privileges.

5. I will, for my own part, go much further; and I do declare, most solemnly, that I would feel and express equal, if not stronger repugnance, to the interference of a Catholic with

the Protestant Church, than that I have expressed and do feel to any Protestant interference with ours.

6. In opposing their interference with us, I content myself with the mere war of words. But, if the case were reversed, -if the Catholic sought this control over the religion of the Protestant, the Protestant should command my heart, my tongue, my arm, in opposition to so unjust and insulting a

measure.

7. So help me God! I would, in that case, not only feel for the Protestant, and speak for him, but I would fight for him, and cheerfully sacrifice my life in defence of the great principle for which I have ever contended-the principle of uni versal and complete religious liberty! O'CONNELL

52. THE IRISH SOLDIER.

[JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, born in Ireland, 1750. Although his senatorial eloquence stands deservedly high, yet it was entirely eclipsed by his brilliant reputation at the bar. "There never lived a greater advocate," says Philips. "His eloquence was copious, rapid, and ornate, and his powers of winning beyond expression." In his boyhood he had an impediment in his utterance, for which reason his schoolmates called him "Stuttering Jack Curran." But, with an energy that should be imitated by all who seek to become great orators, he employed every means to correct his elocution and render it perfect, by speaking very slowly, to correct his defective utterance; and he most carefully committed to memory, and was never tired repeating aloud the most celebrated orations. The following extract is from one of his speeches in the Irish Senate, at the time of the war between England and France:]

THE

HE present is the most awful and important crisis that Ireland ever saw, considering the actual state of the nation, of the empire, and of the war in which we are engaged. As to the original motives of the war, it is not the time to inquire into them; they are lost in the events: if they had been as pure as they have been represented, how much is it to be regretted that the issue has proved only that it is not in mortals to command success.!

2. The armies of Europe have poured into the field, and sur rounded the devoted region of France on every side; but, far

from achieving their purpose, they have only formed an iron hoop about her, which, instead of quelling the fury of her dis sensions, has compressed their spring into an irresistible energy, and forced them into coaction.

3. During its progress we saw the miserable objects for whom it was undertaken consumed in nameless thousands, in the different quarters of Europe, by want, and misery, and despair; or expiring on the scaffold, or perishing in the field.

4. We have seen the honest body of the British manufac turer tumbled into the common grave with the venal carcass of the Prussian hireling; we have seen the generous Briton submit to the alliance of servitude and venalty, and submit to it in vain. The sad vicissitudes of each successive campaign have been marked by the defeat of our armies and triumphs of our enemies, and the perfidy of our allies.

5. What was the situation of the contending parties at the beginning of the contest? England, with Spain, with Austria, with Prussia, with Holland, with Ireland on her side; while France had to count the revolt of Toulon, the insurrection of La Vendée, the rebellion of Lyons, and her whole eastern territory in the hands of her enemies.

6. How direful the present reverse! England exhausted, Holland surrendered, Austria wavering, Prussia fled, and Spain fainting in the contest; while France, triumphant and successful, waves a military and triumphant sceptre over an extent of territory that stretches from the ocean and the Rhine to the Pyrenees and the ocean.

7. I will not dwell upon this miserable picture; I will only observe that, during this long succession of disaster and defeat, Ireland alone, of all the allies Great Britain has, neither trafficked, nor deceived, nor deserted.

8. The present distresses of her people attest her liberality of her treasure, while the bones of her enemies and of her children, bleaching upon all the plains of Europe, attest the brilliancy of her courage and the steadfastness of her faith.

CURRAN.