could not be done with advantage, unless done with safety)" to the State.”

The wish or disposition, in appropriate circumstances, was a benevolent movement of his mind, and it cost his lordship nothing; but your" when," like your “if," is a great peacemaker, and qualifies a number of speeches. Lord Molesworth is in the same story concerning a "standing army;" he would give up both" religious distinctions," and a "standing army," just when there should be no need of either (domestic, or foreign, we must suppose); and besides, in strictness, his lordship's prospective charity" leans rather to the Protestant Nonconformists, than to the Roman Catholics, though, as I freely admit, the principle is the same. In our days, however, there are those who both teach and fancy, and some who only teach, that the very "when" of Lord Molesworth is at last arrived, and that we may now enlarge our charity." My answer, for the present, shall be brief, and will have refer ence only to British Roman Catholics. When

the advocates of the Roman Catholic claims are met by observations upon the aspiring and restless religious character of the body, they commonly admit that particular charge, but rejoin, that this foible has its origin in the present depressed state of the persons to whom it applies, and would infallibly disappear if they were but once exalted. But Lord Molesworth's objection expressly overturns this excuse. It is "when uppermost," according to that Whig authority, that the Roman Catholic "can bear with nobody that differs from him in opinion." So that, thus far, it might seem to be unalterably true, that the Roman Catholic is aspiring and restless, whether lowermost or uppermost!

But the advocates of the claims have still a salvo: the "when" is certainly come. A blind attention to history is the single cause of our mistakes. Roman Catholicism is no longer what it was. This is the story in England, for the hood-winking of poor John Bull!

I have professed my own qualified regard for the testimony of history upon the occasion; the whole scope of my efforts has been to fix your eyes on the day before you; and I have shown you something of what the religious character of the British Roman Catholics is, in our own country, at the moment in which I am writing. But look through the rest of Europe! Look at Italy, Spain, and France! In France, while our correspondence is proceeding, the Roman Catholics and the Protestants are in actual collision; and there, therefore, the religious events of the day afford us peculiar instruction. The laws, have equalised the civil conditions of the two parties, and, in this respect, therefore, the model of what is desired for this kingdom is under our eyes. The Roman Catholics, too, are " uppermost;" they are not in that depressed state, therefore, which, according to the advocates of their claims among ourselves, is the excuse for their restlessness. Further still, it is the passing hour of which we speak, and Roman Catholicism is now no longer what it was! In

France, therefore, with an equalisation of civil rights, an ascendancy of the Roman Catholic body, and with all the improvements of the enlightened era in which we are so happy as to live, every thing must be favourable to the exhibition of the Roman Catholic religious character!

And so it assuredly is, if we can believe the enlightened public speakers, and enlightened and veracious public press in England! But what say the Protestants and the public press in France in France, where experience might confirm the representation? Why, the cry in France, at this moment, is that Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholicism "uppermost!" and all, is, what Roman Catholicism always was before, restless and persecuting; and that, though it has not, hitherto, obtained triumphs in our day as brilliant, that is, as remorseless, as anciently, "its spirit, its tendency, its efforts, and its end, are constantly the same;" and that it is in this manner is manifested, at this time, in France, that Jesuitical influence which, in a

former age, procured the revocation of the Edict of Nantz: "C'est ainsi," says a French writer, last month, while announcing the appearance of a new publication, entitled, "La Révue Protestante," "c'est ainsi qui se manifeste chez nous l'influence de ce pouvoir Jèsuitique, qui dans d'autres temps fit révoq er l'Edit de Nantz; il n' en est pas revenu au point d'obtenir des triomphes aussi éclatans, mais l'esprit, la tendance, les efforts, le but, sont toujours les mêmes."

Sixty years ago, another French writer expressed himself almost in the same terms: "If they no longer burn heretics in France," said he, "it is not their fault: give them the power, and they will make ample use of it. Let them be permitted, to-morrow, to establish the Inquisition, where at present it is not; and, in two months, fires will be lit in the four corners of Europe. The seeds of cruelty and rage are not the less in their hearts, because they do not, at this moment, discover themselves; there wants only sufficient liberty, for those seeds to