The coincidence seems a strange one, that in the same paper, which thus disposes of the rescript, the same paper wherein appear the letters of Doctor Crolly, Doctor Cantwell, and Mr. O’Connell, the same paper in which is published the official denial of a Concordat with the Pope, under the viceregal seal, are also published the proceedings of the Repeal Association, which consisted, to a great extent, of a violent attack on the exploded Concordat.  At the meeting held on the 13th of January, it was denounced especially by two of Mr. O’Connell’s friends, Mr. O’Neill Daunt and Mr. John Reilly, in terms the most vehement and indignant.  Mr. Daunt used these words.  “On that day fortnight he had proclaimed from the chair of the Association, that if a rescript should emanate from Rome denouncing the national movement, the Catholics of Ireland would treat it as so much waste paper.”  This statement was made on the 13th, Doctor Crolly’s letter is dated on the 11th, Mr. O’Connell’s on the 14th, and Lord Heytesbury’s denial of the Concordat on the 15th of January.  Contemporaneously with all these was also published an address of his clergy to the Archbishop of Dublin, deprecating in the strongest language certain calumnies against him, which they attribute to priests and people, Protestant and Catholic.

From these proceedings one inference is inevitable, namely, that they who have so strongly inculcated obedience to the Holy See, and denounced as an infidel any Catholic who refused blind obedience to its decisions, in reference to secular education, were not then troubled with the same sensitiveness or scrupulousness of conscience in regard to the authority of the Roman Pontiff.  But of that one word hereafter.  I here reproduce the historical facts connected with these letters, for another object.  Although the excitement about the threatened Concordat was allayed, and the invectives against the Archbishop of Dublin abated in intemperance, the bitterness of feeling which swept over the country like an avenging scourge, left behind it germs of discord and weakness.

Publicly or privately the Seceders did not interfere.  At the meeting of the Association already alluded to, Mr. O’Brien made a most noble speech, inculcating education, self-reliance, organisation and progress, without stooping to refer to the perplexed question, which filled his audience with angry passions, and supplied the other speakers with intemperate enthusiasm.

The whole endeavours of the Seceders were at this time devoted to the organisation of clubs or reading rooms on an educational basis.  Connected with this object was the augmentation of the Repeal revenue, which was anticipated from the extended action of these political and social schools.  The funds were greatly diminished, and the weekly collections had fallen to an average of about L150.  It became necessary, as much as possible, to curtail the expenses, and a reduction of a very serious amount was effected