them to maintain, in their more mature years, the harmony of which the foundation had thus been laid in their youth; and that thus the religious animosities which were the principal obstacle to the prosperity of the country would be softened, and in time extinguished.  And this object has been achieved to a great extent, though the disfavor with which the Roman Catholic Church regards any educational system which is not under the superintendence of its priesthood has prevented the scheme from attaining the full development which was hoped for.  The number of students of each of the principal sects—­the Church of Ireland, the Roman Catholics, and the Presbyterians—­steadily increases.[263] Members of each religious body are among the professors in each college, and all accounts represent the most perfect harmony and cordiality as existing throughout the whole body.

Yet, important as was the principle contained in these measures, none of them, perhaps, caused such excitement at the moment as an exercise by the government of what was, in point of fact, one of its most ancient, as well as most essential, powers:  the occasional opening of letters which passed through the post, in compliance with a warrant of the Secretary of State.  England had at all times been the refuge of those unquiet spirits who, in pursuit of their schemes of rebellion and revolution, had incurred the displeasure of their own governments, and had too easily found accomplices here.  And in the course of the summer some notorious offenders of this class found a member of the House of Commons to present a petition, in which they complained that some letters which they had posted had been stopped and opened by the officers of the Post-office.  The member who presented the petition appears to have fancied it an unprecedented and wholly unlawful exercise of authority; but Sir James Graham, the Home-secretary, not only at once avowed that the statement was true, and that he had issued his warrant for the opening of the letters mentioned, but also showed that the power to issue such an order was reserved to the Secretary of State in all the statutes which regulated the proceedings of the Post-office.  The clause in the act which conferred the power had been originally framed by Lord Somers, a statesman certainly as little open as any of his time to the suspicion of desiring to encroach on the rightful liberty of the subject; and it had been exercised from time to time in every reign since the Revolution.  It was a power intrusted to the Secretaries of State for the public safety, and exercised by them on their own responsibility.  The practice and its justification were assailed in both Houses of Parliament by members of the extreme Liberal party; but, though no distinct motion on the subject was made, the general feeling of both Houses was plainly evinced, that it was a power which might at times be highly useful for the prevention of crime, or for the hinderance of conspiracies which might be dangerous to the general welfare and tranquillity, and that the constitutional responsibility attaching to every minister for every official act was a sufficient security against its being improperly used.[264]