the congested districts supplement their pocket-money.  They have annexed the revenues of the industrial schools.  They are engaged in transforming the universal proprietary of Ireland in order to add materials for their exactions from the living and the moribund.  I am told that not less than L5,000,000 are lifted from the Irish people every year by the innumerable agencies of clerical suction which are at work upon all parts of the Irish body, politic and social.  Nor can it be forgotten that the material loss is only a portion of the injury.  The brow-beaten and intimidated condition of the popular action and intelligence which is necessary to this state of things necessarily communicates its want of will and energy to every function of the community.’”

Of course Mr. F.H.  O’Donnell has been driven out of public life in Ireland for plain speaking like this; and so would every man be who ventured to cross swords with his Church.  It aggravates the situation immensely when we take another fact in Irish life into account.

In quite recent months Mr. Devlin, M.P., has brought into prominence a society called the Ancient Order of Hibernians (sometimes called the Molly Maguires) which, according to the late Mr. Michael Davitt, is “the most wonderful pro-Celtic organisation in the world.”  This is a secret society which at one time was under the ban of the Church; but quite recently the ban has been removed, and priests are now allowed to join the order.  The present Pope is said to be its most powerful friend.  It has branches in many lands, and it is rapidly gathering into it all the great mass of the Irish Roman Catholic people.  This is the most wonderful political machine in Ireland.

Mr. William O’Brien, M.P., has recently given an account of this society which has never been seriously questioned.

“The fundamental object of the Hibernian Society is to give preference to its own members first and Catholics afterwards as against Protestants on all occasions.  Whether it is a question of custom, office, public contracts, or positions on Public Boards, Molly Maguires are pledged always to support a Catholic as against a Protestant.  If Protestants are to be robbed of their business, if they are to be deprived of public contracts, if they are to be shut out of every office of honour or emolument, what is this but extermination?  The domination of such a society would make this country a hell.  It would light the flame of civil war in our midst, and blight every hope of its future prosperity.”

And now we reach the core of the question.  It is perfectly clear that Home Rule would create a Roman Catholic ascendency in Ireland, but still it might be said that the Church of Rome would be tolerant.  On that point we had best consult the Church of Rome herself.  Has she ever said that she would practise toleration towards Protestants when she was in power?  Never; on the contrary, she declares most clearly that