Here is our difficulty under Home Rule.  Irish Protestants see that they must either refuse to go into an Irish Parliament, or else go into it as a hopeless minority, and turn it into an arena for the maintenance of their most elementary rights; in which case the Irish Parliament would be simply a cockpit of religio-political strife.  But it would be a great mistake to suppose that the religious difficulty is confined to Irish Protestants.  It is a difficulty which would become in time a crushing burden to Roman Catholics themselves.  The yoke of Rome was found too heavy for Italy, and in a generation or two it would be found too heavy for Ireland.  But for the creation of the Papal ascendency in Ireland, the responsibility must rest, in the long run, on Great Britain herself.  England and Scotland, the most favoured lands of the Reformation, by establishing Home Rule in Ireland, will do for Rome what no other country in the world would do for her.  They would entrust her with a legislative machine which she could control without check, hand over to her tender mercies a million of the best Protestants of the Empire, and establish at the heart of the Empire a power altogether at variance with her own ideals of Government, fraught with danger, and a good base of operations for the conquest of England.  Can this be done with impunity?  Can Great Britain divest herself of a religious responsibility in dealing with Home Rule?  Is there not a God in Heaven who will take note of such national procedure?  Are electors not responsible to Him for the use they make of their votes?  If they sow to the wind, must they not reap the whirlwind?

In brief compass, I hope I have made it quite clear what the Religious Difficulty in Ireland under Home Rule is.  It is not a mere accident of the situation; it does not spring from any question of temper, or of prejudice, or of bigotry.  The Religious Difficulty is created by the essential and fundamental genius of Romanism.  Her whole ideal of life differs from the Protestant ideal.  It is impossible to reconcile these two ideals.  It is impossible to unite them in any amalgam that would not mean the destruction of both.  Under Imperial Rule these ideals have discovered a decently working modus vivendi.  Mr. Pitt’s contention that the union with Great Britain would be an effectual barrier against Romanism has held good.  But if you remove Imperial Rule than you create at a stroke the ascendency of Rome, and under that ascendency the greatest injustice would be inflicted on the Protestant minority.  Questions of public situations and of efficient patronage are of very subordinate importance indeed.  Mr. Redmond demands that Irish Protestants must be included in his Home Rule scheme, and threatens that if they object they must be dealt with “by the strong hand,” and his Home Rule Parliament would be subservient to the Church of Rome.  Does any one suppose that a million of the most earnest Protestants in the world are going to submit to such an arrangement?  Neither Englishmen nor Scotsmen would be willing themselves to enter under such a yoke, and why should they ask Irishmen to do so?