’I have always heard the house of Forbes eulogised for its advocacy of civil and religious liberty, and the name of Grogan Morgan has become a household word through this county as one of the best landlords in Ireland.  He never broke down a rooftree during or since the terrible famine.  Under his fostering care they have all tided over the calamitous time, and are happy and prosperous in their homes.  He did not think his estate overcrowded, nor did he avail himself of the mysterious destruction of the fruits of the earth, to clear off beings made in God’s image, and to drive them to the poorhouse, the fever-shed, or the emigrant ship, to whiten the bottom of the sea with their bones, or to face the moral and physical perils of the transatlantic cities.  He did not read his bible, like Satan, backwards, nor did he turn out the Son of God in the person of His poor.  Hence his name is in benediction, and his estates are more prosperous than the estates of those who forget God in their worldly wisdom, and would seem to have no belief in a judgment to come.  What a happiness it is, my Lord and Lady Granard, for you to have such a heritage, and to know that you live in the hearts of your tenantry, who would spill the last drop of their blood to shield you and your dear children from hurt and harm!’

Let it not be supposed that such sentiments are peculiar to the Catholic clergy, or that their causes exist only in the south and west.  The Rev. Dr. Drew, a rector in the county Down, an Orange chaplain, a veteran champion of Protestantism and Toryism, but an honourable and humane man, wrote the following letter last autumn:—­

If the magnificent lecture of Mr. Butt had done nothing more than elicit this letter from Dr. Drew, it would have been much.  But will not the thoughts of many hearts be revealed in the same manner?  What a number of plain-speaking Drews we shall have denouncing tyranny when their consciences are relieved from the incubus of the Establishment!

  To Isaac Butt, Esq., LL.D.

’My dear Butt—­If every other man in the world entertained doubts of my sincerity, you, at least, would give me credit for honesty and just intentions.  I write to you accordingly, because my mind has been stirred to its inmost depths by the perusal of your address in my native city of Limerick.  I do not regard the subject of your address as a political one.  It ought to be regarded solely as a question of humanity, justice, common sense, and common honesty.  I wish my lot had never been cast in rural places.  As a clergyman I hear what neither landlords nor agents ever hear.  I see the depression of the people; their sighs and groans are before me.  They are brought so low as often to praise and glorify those who, in their secret hearts, are the objects of abhorrence.  All this came out gradually before me.  Nor did I feel as I ought to feel in their behalf until, in my own person and purse, I became the victim of a