Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 32, 7 December 1883, Page 1

Current Topics

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

As the memories of the Reformation are now rife everything that throws an additional light on that movement, and makes its nature more clearly apparent by exposing the lives of those who took a principal part in it is not without an interest for us. There is a special interest attached to a world newly reformed, and rejoicing in what the Bishop of Nelson thankfully calls almost a "new revelation " — and the lives of those who tore off the covering which the devil had placed thick and tight over the light that God had kindled and set on a candlestick for the salvation of the world must needs be an edifying study. — For it is not to be thought that Satan should be divided against himself, and that he would undo in a moment of time what it had taken him even s century or two to accomplish — he having at some period or another, though no one can Tery well tell exactly when, covered with a thousand superstitions the Gospel truth. And, surely, it was not G-od Himself who had done that which he had pronounced as too great a piece of folly for any man to perform — that is lighted a candle to cover it with a bushel — wnat, nevertheless, he must have done had he suffered the doctrines taught by his Apostles to be hidden under the weigh*-, of superstition. But the devil, who had hidden this great light under the bushel of falsehood, would not, in division against himself, have af tf rwards removed the bushel— that was, therefore the work of the children of light. We are interested, theD, in finding a few particulars, given on high Protestant authority' — that of the Saturday Review — concerning a lady whom we are forced to regard as one of the chief among these children of light, and whose part in freeing England from the superstitions that had overgrowD the faith, so that, according to the Bishop of Nelson, almost a new revelation was necessary to restore the truth to mankind, was a very notable one. We allude to the Lady Anne Boleyrf£-A lady who walked in the van when England was coming out of the bouse of bondage might well have had her place by the 6ide of Mary, the sister of Aaron— might have ranked with the great women who were among the prophetesses and judges of Israel— of those holy ones who had their part in the beginning of the second dispensation. For surely this new revelation that has been, as we are told, the source of all modern prosperity, and of the progress and civilisation of the present day, can hardly be ranked as inferior to that which accompanied the giving of the law, or to that which so soon became useless, obscured, and encumbered by superstition 1 Anne Boleyn, then, to whom the Reformation in England owed &Q>much, we must take as a perfect woman— a saint of the new revelation, and one whom we may point out as a pattern of sanctity to all our maids and matrons— however peculiar the sanctity may seem to some of vs. '" And Anne Boleyn," says the JRevieiv, <: was willing to figure as Lutheran or anything else in reli. gion so long as she could get her marriage with the King acknowledged as valid." But let us understand this in the proper spirit.—* Was it not to the credit of the Lady Anne, that while Zwinglian and were ready to" cut one another's throats, and the Anabapnot only ready, to do so, but were actually engaged pretty hwy in the action ; while a war of religious- tenets raged everywhere, she, with an angelic mind, was free from prejudice, and ready to be the friend of all who would extend to her the right hand of fellowship? But what can the writer mean when he goes on to contrast the conduct of toe gentle Lady Anne — the enlightened daughter of. gospel truth, and its prophetess among the women of Fngland, with that of the dark Popish women Catherine of Arragon and her daughter of "bloody" memory? "The great misery." he says, " to which Catherine of Arragon and her daughter, the Princess Mary, were exposed, the dignified conduct and Christian forbearance of both, and the diabolical malice of Anne Boleyn, are shown in very broad relief. It is true the picture is drawn chiefly from th<* letters of the Imperial Ambassador, and we must make some allowance for such exaggerations as a person whose prejudices were all enlisted on one side may have been guilty of, as well as for the

A. HEROINE OF THE " KBW REjptA.TIOK."

evident desire he has to excite the Emperoi to make war upon Henry, with the view of avenging the cause of bis mother's sister the repudiated Queen of England ' rdently as Chapuys may have desired fco see the King punished for Ais barbarous treatment o£ the Qneen and her daughter, he honest' informed the Emperor that Catherine was daily charging him tfyjpZ^ Charles not to think of making war on her behalf, as she wou|W ,ther die ; but he does Dot scruple to intimate over and over<*rc\ that the lives of neither the Queen nor the Princess were safe f syn*toj machinations of Ann* Boleyn ; and on this point it is clear th?>< c sometimes feels a distrust as to what the Kiog might be induced indirectly to sanction." ." Anne Boleyn's influence was still very great," he goes on to say, " for very soon after the birth of Elizabeth she was again pregnant, and there were hopes of a male heir to the throne. Perhaps the most remarkable feature in the whole history of the protracted case for the divorce is the unbounded fascination this woman exercised over the King, not only during the time Bhe had kept him at a distance, but after she had sacrificed her honour, if honour it could he called, to his solicitations and even -subsequently to ihe marriage. Even during the year 1534, though at times there were considerable quarrels, and though there is abundant evidence to show that Anne Boleyn had real cause for jealousy as regards another young lady of the Court (who was not, however, Jane Seymour), she from time to time recovers her ascendency, and is evidently at the bottom of all the ill-treatment which the Queen and Princess experienced."— Tho women, then, of the new revelation appear to have differed in Borne degree from those of the former one. They even appear to have differed somewhat disadvantageous^ from those who beheld only such faint gleams of the Gospel light as escaped from the bushel with which the devil had covered it— and, perhaps, it may be that their eyes being dazzled with the full blaze themselves helped in revealing they stumbled a little in their gait.— But was not the former revelal tion also made at first to the harlots, the publicans, and sinners, and if these poor people altered their wajs, and entered upon anew course of life, let us not forget that that revelation bore within it the imperfection that caused it almost immediately to become obscured and weli nigh lost beneath a mass of superstition.— lf the harlots, the publicans, and sinners of the new revelation saw no cause to alter their ways, they reasonably had a more perfect assuiance in a stronger system, and in one that, in spite of all their pecadillos, must lead the world on to perfection and a salvation that could not fail ov be repulsed.— ls not so much, indeed implied in their motto— Peeca fortiter ? There is great edification, then, to be derived from these easy and most confident lives if only we study them aright.— We may add that the passages we have quoted from the Saturday Review occur in a review of a volume of State papers, arranged by the assistant keeper of the Public Records, and lately published in London. , * But were we not told again, some years, ago, that the "Reformation, even in our own days, and before our astonished eyes, was about to spread still further over Europe. When, for example, Italy was in motion to Cavour's wire-pulling, and Garibaldi was being made use of as a hero to work out the purposes of the astute politician in question, and his unscrupulous king, Exeter Hal], and all the realms of Protestantism were loud in their approbation, and agog with hope as to the future of the Gospel in those regions where popery had hitherto held undisputed sway. When, moreover, the undertaking had been accomplished, troops of evangelical missionaries were poured into the emancipated country, and the " unaided Word " was distributed broadcast in all its quarters.— With what effect, then 1 Why, apparently with somewhat the same effect that seema to have followed everywhere in the traces of tic Reformation— the increase of crime and increased demoralisation. The latest particulars of this we find are furnished by the correspondent of the London Times writing from Naples on Sept. 30th. He quotes the Boma as saying :— " While the material progress of Italy is undeniable, we cannot say the same of its moral progress. The number of those in prison remains inexorably the same, and we observe a most deplorable increase of crimes of blood. For a word, a slight

SHIiL THE SAME.

A GREAT DAT.

difference of opinion, the hand is directly on the knife or the revolve 1 " — an instant of bestial fury, followed by a wound and death. In comparison with all other people, it is well known that the Southerners give a fearful contingent to crimes of blood. Is it possible that, after 20 years of liberty and education, no remedy has been found — that no diminution at least has been obtained of those acts of barbarous ferocity which dishonour us ? " But let us at least acknowledge that, since the effects are the same, the causes also must be the same. Decidedly Exeter Hall was right, and with the success of Garibaldi the Reformation actually did make its way into Italy, and has progressed there. ■ On October 7 the Basilica of St. Peter's was the scene of a very grand and impressive spectacle. The Pope received there the Italian pilgrim?, and delivered to them a weighty and spirit-stirring address. The correspondent of the Times, -writing from Rome, describes what he witnessed as follows: — "At noon precisely load cheers in the vicinity of the Chapel of the Sacrament announced that fhe Pope was approaching. He was not, as in 1881, borne aloft on the sedia gestatoria. He was carried in as far as the end of the transept in his elegant little sedaa chair, covered with scarlet velvet and lined with white satin, preceded by noble guards and attended by the Swiss with their halberds. Leaving his chair at the foot of the platform» and wearing his customary white dress, with dark erimsou mozzetta bordered with white far and richly embroidered stole, he ascended the throne followed by 20 cardinals, first of whom was Cardinal Howard, Archpriest of the Basilica, and the members of the Ponti* fical Court, and as he stood in front of it facing the people the cheers and vivas, .which had continued unceasingly from the moment he entered the church, became positively deafening. I was fortunate in having obtained a place very near the throne, and the sight of the dense crowd of people assembled, the cloud of white handkerchiefs they were waving, and the unrestrained enthusiasm they displayed was most imposing. For the time being St. Peter's was no longer a church, or at any rate the people forgot the fact, and conducted themselves as if they were standing in a vast audience chamber. The crowd not only filled the whole of the transept, but, covering all the square under the dome, extended well oa to the end of the transept opposite. Every point of vantage was taken possession of evan to the high altar itself. It is difficult to estimate what the number present may have been, but it was certainly not less than 20,000." The great event of the day, however, was the Holy Father's address, in. which, as the Times also notes, he renewed the appeal he had made in his letter of last August, and referred to history as that which must vindicate the Papacy from false charges brought agairst it, as well as explained the causes which had in truth led to the spoliation of the Holy See :—"lt: — "It is well-known to all," he said, " what were the intentions of the sects and their followers in violating the sacred rights of ths Apostolic Sec, and reducing tlie Roman Pontiff to an unworthy condition, which you together with us, loudly deplore. It was not because, as untruly and foolishly has been said, the Papacy is the enemy of Italy. History, as we have many times said, has registered in. indelible charac'ers the signal advantages which have accrue I to her at every epoch from the supremely beneficent nature of the Papacy, advantages to which time and the researches of the learned will ever give new splendour. It will always "be more and more apparent that none of those things which truly deserve the name of benefits, nofconly in the religious and moral order, but also in the political, social, domestic, and private, are irreconcilable with the Papacy ; on the contrary, all find therein life, vigour, and increment. Neither was it, as has been hypocritically repeated, through the desire of seeing the Cturcb and the Pontiff as they say relieved from the troublesome charge of worldly cares ;" a desire which sounds a mockery in the mouth of those who in so many ways devised and devise how to vex the Church, even in her spiritual and divine mission. The real sectarian aim was to strike the Church and her head, depriving the Apostolic See of that which formed the guardianship of her liberty, the not illusory guarantee of her independence, and pushing' audacity still further to snatch finally from Italy the inestimable treasure of faith and of fhe Catholic religion." The Times, in a, leader commenting on this passage in the Holy Father's address, agaiQ admits, as it had done before when the letter to the Cardinals on historical research was published,' that the Pope's claim to the benefits conferred upon Italy by the Papacy is undeniable :—": — " On Sunday, as in August," it says, '•' he had much, to say in support of his new position, which is historically true. Without the Papacy the tradition of classical art and letters might have been extinguished. ThG Papacy combined Christendom, as no other Power could, against Islam. Its leagues against Saracen and Turk opened the way to Italian commerce in the East. In the darkest period of Italian anarchy and division the Papacy remained Italian and reminded Italians that an Italy somewhere existed." What, nevertheless, the Times denies, is that the Holy Father's appeal to the past will so change the course of the present, or influence the future, aB to lead to the .restoration of the

.Temporal Power, 01 even to the surrender of the city of Rome to the Pope. The aspect of affairs, towever, is not so completely hopeless as the Times seems to conclude. Italy has not prospered by the spoliation of the Holy See ; poverty and mi3ery oE many kinds have distinguished the years of her unity, — and as to her social condition, we have published many proofs of the deterioration it has suffered. We even publish in our present issue an additional testimony to this, taken from an Italian newspaper. Those twenty thousand pilgrims whom the Pope addressed, and each of whom, we may well believe went out from bis presence a zealous missionary, determined to advocate the Holy Father's views and obey his behests, will have in the state of the country an able seconder, and the minds of all men, capable of reason and common sense, we may rationally expect to be open to arguments that may be so powerfully supported. But even in the alliance with Germany, Italy will be drawn into the close consideration of the evil struggle she is engaged in, and its futile effects. Has not that great Empire itself been obliged to withdraw overcome from the contest, and does not all Europe acknowledge that the German Chancellor has approached almost to the towers of Canossa ? If the strength of Germany, on which Italy relies for be"r position among European powers, was not strong enough to bear the combat with Home, how much longer can she who is so much more weak, and who has offended so much more grievously, maintain it ? But the very concession which the Tbnes would make to the £ope, proves how much what it would deny is needed by him, and the impossibility of the fulfilment of what it acknowledges to be necessary, shows that the Pope only demands what hecaonot with fidelity to his great and awful charge abandoD. — " The Pope," it says, " has a right to be free to exercise his spiritual dominion. Italy has pledged -itself to the Catholic world to secure him in the enjoyment of freedom of spiritual action;" But who shall secure to Italy the power of doing this, or remove from all chance of coming upon her the innumerable obstacles that would hamper her action in the matter, and make her incapable of performing the task she had undertaken, let her will be what it might. Finally, there is a portion of the Pope's address which the Times h.a3 overlooked, and which, perhaps, would obtain its scorn, if any attention were given to it, that is the Holy Father's direction to hia 20,000 hearers that they should pray earnestly for the right issue of this matter. If argument fails, if Statesmen continue obstinate, and all human means are vain to bring about a better condition of things, there is over all the power of Gi-03, to control, to alter, and direct, and in this is the sure hope of the Catholic world, as most evideatly is also, and very firmly, tba,t of their great head upon earth, Pope Leo XIII.— Let us pray, then, as the Holy Father directs us, for his intention in this, as in everything else. There is nothing in which he does not see further, and judge more clearly, thaa we do. Anotheb sketch connected with the " new revelalation " and of much edging power, if it be rightly considered has been lately contributed by Mr. S. Hurbert Burke to the Catlwlic World. It is that of certain event 3 attendant on the death of that great champion and patron of the English Reformation, the first head upon earth of the English Church, and in virtue of whose established supremacy one of the royal dukes the other day, in the presence of certain distinguished prelates, claimed for Her Most Gracious Majesty the Qaeen, his mother, the headship of the Church in question. " The last day of Henry Tudor had now passed," writes Mr 1 Burke, " and the niglit of the dying agony commenced. It was a condition of fearful bodily suffering to tbe*ling, broken by intervals of remorse and prayer. Had human pride vanished ? Hal mercy returned to the royal breast ? "Was the King at peace with the world ? No 1 another act of vengeance was to be consummated. For a year or so before the King's death the warrants for execution were signed by commission in consequence of the monarch's state of health. But in this special case the royal tyrant expressed his determination and pleasure to sign the Duke of Norfolk's death-warrant with Ms own ImyiiV " Dean Hook," the writer continues, " justly remarks that nothing more terrible than this scene can be imagined : ' AjAp of the clock, when the cold sweat of death covered his face, whenTn dreadful agony from hen 1 Lo footj, the awfully prostrated monarch was making a faint effort to sign the fatal document.' The action manifested the mastery of a ruthless spirit and evinced the domination of a final impenitence. In the very arms of death he would destroy the living ; on the threshold of the grave he would turn from the presence of his God to make one more sacrifice to the enemy of mankind. Yet even that thirst for the blood of an illustrious subject, whose age he had left nearly childless, might not have been the last of the crimes of this unforgiving pi'inc\ A few hours more elapsed (two o'clock in the morning), and the shadow of death was casting a deep and solemn gloom upon the royal chamber. The end now came. The final contest; was brief ; and in a pulse's throb, the spirit of the long dreaded King Henry was wafted to the presence of that Omnipotent tribunal where so many of his iniquitous judgments deserved to be reversed. A death-bed has been described as

ANOTHER PRIVILEGED ONE.

EL MAHDI.

the altar of forgiveness, where charity and tears commingle as the spirit of prayer communes. These attributes were absent from the dying couch of Henry Tudor, whose last, despairing words, chronicled by Anthony Browne, ' All is lost I ' expressed an awful conscious ness of the .retribution due to a merciless, selfish and remorseless career." So much for .the death of tbe royal Apostle thru,— the first substitute for the encroaching St. Peter over the English Church, — but of his bural we fiud ilio following particulars :— •' Tho ro\al remains being carried to Wind.-or to be buried stood all night among the dilapidated walls of th* Convent of Sion, and there the leaden coffin being cleft by the shaking of the carriage along a bad road in heavy weather, it was placed upon a stand, and after a while the attendants discovered that the pavement of the chapel was quite wet from the stream of blood proceeding from the coffin. In the morning came plumbers to solder the coffin, which had burst, when suddenly the men discovered two dogs liking np the King's blood. The narrator— one of the royal household— says : 'If you ask me how I know this, I answer, William Grerille, who could scarcely drive away the dogs, was my informant.. The plumbers, who were greatly affrighted, corroborated the above statement, " The dismantled convent alluded to " adds the writer " had been the prison of Queen Catherine (Howard), whose execution' took place five years before the corpose of her ruthless husband reached his temporary resting-place. The reader will remember the denunciation of Father Peto at Greenwich Boyal Chapel (1533), in the presence of the haughty monarch and his then idolized Anna Boleyn, when the fearless friar compared the King to Achab, and told him to his face that ' the dogs would in like manner lick his blood.' Some Protestant writers question the. above relation. Be it, however, coincidence or the verification of prophecy, the fact stands, and needs no further reference from me." It would then perhaps seem as if in some instances at least the circumstances attendant on the deaths of those who were engaged in the new revrelation had been different from what we know concerning the men and women engaged in that more frail one, as was the manner of their lives. "We read now with a melancholy interest tbe letter of a military correspondent of the Times, who writes from Khartoum on September 3, giving some particulars of the expedition under General Hicks, of which he himself was evidently a member. He mentions, also, as a "curious instance of the irony of -fate," that 1600 of the men to accompany them consisted of Arabi's old regiment the first to mutiny, and which fought against the English at Tel-el-Kebir. The " irony of fate," nevertheless, had not as yet had its full illustration, but that was received when the regiment were cut to bits under, as he says, the " oTders and direction English officers " instead oi when fighting against them, — He farther describes "the troops generally as looking well and being in good spirits, and he mentions that they tad been joined hy a young Austrian officer,, a Captain Herlth, who had served in the Bosnian campaign, and been for some years in a Üblan regiment. — Meantime we find some information about El Mahdi, the rebel chief, who proved so fatal to this expedition, in the " Annals of the Propagation of the Faith," for September. It occurs in a letf er that had been received from a priest who w"as a missionary in the Soudan, but who, with his companions — another priest, two brothers, and three nuns, had been driven away from their settlement and required to apostatise on pain of death.— At the time he wrote two of the nuns and a brother had died, and of the four left, no tidings have since been received. The sentence of death passed upon them had not been executed, but they were threatened with a worse fate in being given as slaves to the Arabs, and m the publication we refer to the prayers of the faithful are asked for their protection and deliverance.— Tbe missionary writes as follows :— " The rebel chief iB called by the Arabs Mahdi or Imao. He is a sort of mussulman priest, of a bronze complexion, tall in. stature, and with a rather genial physiognomy. Long ago he conceived the idea of restoring Islamism in the countries under the quasi-European influence of Eygpt. Tbe discoutent engendered in the Soudan provinces by the ► too heavy weight of taxes afforded him a favourable opportunity. He began, therefore to raise the standard of revolt on the shores of tbe White River, in the name of God and the Prophet. According to a tradition of tbe Arabs the Mahdi or prophet shall, in the latter days, preach the Koran and spread Islamism over the whole earth, until the moment when Jesus Christ himself, merely a prophet in their opinion, shall come to join himself to the mussulman messiah, and invite all Christians to follow thp rel ? gion of Mahomet. Mahommed Ahmed (this is the name of the Mahdi), has shown great cleverness in taking advantage of current traditions, the state of opinion, and the feebleness of the Government. Insufficient and badly-armed troops were sent to Khartoum ; and these became separated, suffered defeats, and were cut to pieces one after another. Thenceforth the enthusiasm of the mussulmans has gone on increasing." — Tbe opinion that the chief caus-e of the Mahdi's success arose from the inefficient troops sent against him also prevailed among the officers of General Hicks, and we find the correspondent of the Times writing concern-

A NOTABLE PROGRESS.

ing the matter as follows : "Itis by systematically neglecting the elementary principles of the art of war that so many disasters have befallen the Egyptian troops in the Soudan, and this neglect has cost the Government 17,000 men, 18,000 stand of arms, several guns aad rockets, and some 5,000,000 roan ds of ammunition." Perhaps this belief may even have been the unfortuna f c cause of some less precautions measures on the part of the General and Ms officers, and so may have helped in bringing about the catastrophe. — At any rate, from what the missionary says, it is evident the Mahdi is a very formidable foe» and one who may be expected to prove especially fierce in meeting any force representing, in any degree, a Christian power.— One, moreover, whose cause may gain the sympathy of the Mahomedan world generally, and in support of which a very dangerous outbreak is always possible in many places. This exalted party of law and order in the United Kingdom, — the cream of all humanity, and the model of mankind in perfection, in the persons of some of their chosen representatives, have been proving to an admiring universe what is in~ truth the nature of tha gloiious principles by which they are guided', and how desirable it is that the system by which they thrive should be re-established, and made finally and conclusively paramount, Sir Stafford Northcote, in a word, has made a brilliant tour in the North of Ireland, and left behind him monuments that very suitably commemorate tha triumphal progress accomplished by him. The Conservative leader was, moreover, attended by a galaxy of the aristocracy who did honour to the cause that he and they represented in common, and which we have thus seen once more illustrated and vindicated as it deserves to' be. A company of nabiemen and landlords, then, whose interest it is that not only Ireland should continue in misery, but the poor of the whole three kingdoms, and that the old distinctions and the old ascendencies should rfmain intact, took this opportunity to play upon the bigotry of the Trottstant lower orders, and by stir, ring up their ignorant prejudices, and exciting their religious violence to force them to do all that lay in their power to rivet tha chains that they themselves also wear, and to abide in the degradation that is as inseparable from their own condition as it is from that of any of their fellow-countryman.— But as to what the great world of England, and that sensitive public that cry out at every outrage commit* ted in Ireland as a just cause for the condemnation of the whole people, will say to the presence of a man of Sir Stafford Northcote's standing at meetings in which the vulgar passions of the Orange mob were stirred up, so that they broke out into open, tumult, and behaved in the savage way that is customary among them, we hare not as yet had time tp learn. — Probably, however, we shall find that, as circumstances alter cases, a great deal will be overlooked in connection with the conduct of the magnate in question that, were it reported of anyone connected with the .Irish cause, would make the three kingdoms ring with horror. — Nay, had some of the speeches made at meetings attended by Fir Stafford Northcote or even some of the utterances addressed to him personally been made by members of the National party, there is no doubt but that those who uttered them would have been immediately imprisoned. From Sir Stafford, nevertheless, they obtained only approbation, and, in some instances, he warmly congratulated the speakers on their sentiments, and expressed his delight at the spirit shown by the Orangemen. He acted thus, for example, at Carrickfergus, in response to the assurance of Mr. Greer, M.P. that, were the Nationalist party to show themselves there they would be Bure to meet with a warm reception — and we are forced to conclude that Sir Stafford Northcote was by no means so uninformed as not to know what a warm reception, as given by an excited Orange mob, would mean. Indeed, he had already had an opportunity of witnessing the Orangemen at work, or at play, as it may be, for, on bis passage through Belfast, escorted by them, they bad wrecked the office of the Morning News. Perhaps it was this very Bight, moreover, that gave Sir Stafford so much confidence in the renowned body* and led him to declare his belief, in speaking next evening at Belfast, that they were not the men to take consolation for a temporary beating in mass meetings, processions, or shouting, but that they would " set their teeth and clench their hands, and determine to go to work with vigour, and with their whole heart to regain their position." He had evidently admired their powers in the demolition of the newspaper office which took place before his eyes. And for his further confirmation in the good opinion he had formed of them, it is to be regretted he was not also present when one of their valiant bands, next morning* beat and stoned in a brutal manner a poor little boy engaged as a messenger in the local office of the Dublin Freeman — but as lie was in the town, let us hope he bad an early opportunity of congratulating the brave assailants. Another proof of their prowess, nevertheless, Sir Stafford has been obliged in some degree to disapprove of ; not, however, before a sufficient time had elapsed to shield him from any effects of their mortification, and not before some unfavourable comments had been made on his connection with the matter in quarters which he either feared or respected. It wn

that which occurred at Ballyrtafeigh, on the very evening that he was felicitating Mr. Greer on the warm reception to be given to the Nationalists on their daring to appear at Carrickfergus, when an Orange crowd displayed their va!our, and showed forth the noble Protestantism that animated their hearts in terrifying a community of defenceless women by smashing in the windows o£ their convent, — thereby so frightening the Rev. Mother, who lay ill at the time, that in five hours after the attack she died from the effects of tbe shock.— The very remote bhare he had in this transaction Sir Stafford Northcote admits that he regrets, although he repulses his connection with the deed to the furthest distance possible from it— much further, in fact, than can be conceded to a man who had done his best to stir up the Orange mob to the expression of its usual very well-known ferocity. Sir Stafford, moreover, had certainly sufficient knowledge of what the Orangemen were to make him understand very fully what it was that the Marquis of Waterford meant when, in proposing a resolution at the Belfast meeting, he said with enthusiasm, seconding a voice raised among the crowd, in reference to the National League — " Yes, let them come to Belfast. He wished to God they would come to Belfast." — The most noble Marquis, in fact, called on God to witness his desire that ""the members of the National League might have their lives trampled out of them, and be torn limb from limb in the streets, and Sir Stafford Northcote, at that time, with full knowledge of the tragedy at Ballynafeigh, stood by consenting to the aspiration. — We see then what it is that the party of older are willing^to do so that they may secure their ends. — We have proved to us the hypocrisy that cries out with counterfeited horror at every Irish outrage reported of, but which, judging from all these doings in the North, we may reasonably conclude, rejoices at even the worst outrage that can be made use of to blacken the national cause. We see the British respectability, ma word, that has brutalised the British masses and that will yet reap the fruits of what it has sown in some terrible revolution — for let us fancy what would be the jacquerie formed by clowns such as Dr. Jeswp has described to vs — unless Mr. ParnelL in Ireland and men of liberal views in England and Scotland prevail, so that the necessary reforms may be brought about with moderation and quietness. — But Sir Stafford Northcote's progress in the North has shown us the Conservative system in its true light, and if it is to end in blood and fire as the Ancien Itegvine went down,*it will be hard for historians of the future to prove that it also had not had its deserts.