THE QUEEN'S COLLEGES IN IRELAND. [From the "Times,"Sept.8.]

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 606, 4 February 1852, Page 4

THE QUEEN'S COLLEGES IN IRELAND. [From the "Times," Sept. B.]

The cause of truth is never utterly hopeless, and honesty and ''air dialing carry with them no little vitality ami power even in unhappy and priest-ridden Ireland. The most patient submission, the most abject bigotry, becomes wpary at last of following the ditection of men who scarcely prt tend to have at heart the interests of their disciple* or to acknowledge any other guide than the encroaching spn it of priestly domination The church of Rome is just now playing a mighty stake in Ireland. On the one hand she is calling on her votaries to violate the law and defy a Government to whose forbearance alono she owes her continued protection and toler.ition, while on the other she is engaged in a deadly struggle with that which in the 19th century is more powerful than any other Government and any law—the thirst of the human mind for ktowled^e and its tendency towards instruction and enlightment. Scarcely were the Queen's Colleges launched into existence, when the bitter and remorseles enemies of Ireland, never weary of thwaiting whatever was designed for her good, and conveiting it if possible into a fresh element of discord and misery, conspired together for their destruction. They hated them for the knowledge which they werE to impart, and for the friendship and goodwill between the rising generation of Protestants nnd Catholics which they so obviously tended to establish. The hereditary dissensions between the rival creeds have long been regarded by these ministers of peace as the surest foundation of sacerdotal power, and friendship between Roman Catholic and Protestant as the first step in a conspiracy for emancipation from priestly interference. That Roman Catholics should derive instruction from other lips than those of their priests was bad, but that this should be done in the society of Protestants was intoleiable. Urged by these weighty considerations, the majority of the Irish hierarchy, with the Pope at their head, Lave deliberately entered the lists against knowledge and proclaimed internecine war against the charities and amenities of life. Urged by the burning zeal which naturally stimulates such persons to the destruction of such things, relying on the completeness of their own organization and their power over the minds of their flocks they have thrown aside their habitual caution and discarded those tactics which Lave so often in the same cause of ignorance and discord, conducted them to unenviable! and disgiaceful victories. Instead of confining the conflict ,to that arena in which its power is most easily and irrosistably exeicised — the domestic circle and the private chamber — the Roman Catholic hierarchy has acted in its public and corporate capacity. Insteul of employing the individual energies of its member's, and instead of the usual arts of private insinuation and mis-reprpsentation, the priesthood has sought to put down the hated md dreaded Queen's Colleges in Ireland by means of public denunciation and proscription. This was certainly a bold stroke— a policy by which there was much to gain, but by the failure of which there was also much to lose. Success would have gone far to establish the position, that in whatever Government desired to do for the benefit of lieland the co-operation of the Roman Catholic hierarchy was not only desiiable but indispensable. So signal an exercise of power would, if successful, have invested the Pope with a veto on every act of the Imperial Parliament, and the possessun of this veto would Lave been followed, in the natural course of things, by the assumption of power to do as well as to undo, to^ command as well as to forbid. If, on the other hand,' the ecclesiastical thunderbolt should miss its aim, and the Colleges, like the laurel of old, should defy its terrors, the Court of Rome will by this most over. Btrained and injudicious use of the authority it has usurped over Her Majesty's subjects, produce a reaction against its encroachments the amount of which it may be difficult to appreciate. Those who have been taught by the extravagance of the Papal demands on their obedience the necessity of disregarding them have learnt a lesson the value of which, whatever it may be in theology, is in politics beyond all price — the practice of private judgment; and if they have not ceased to be Roman Catholics they have at any rate acquired the most valuable principle of Protestantism, and discarded the most odious, because the most slavish, tenet of Romanism. Instead of the v. ill of an imbecile Pontiff or a narrow-minded and intolerant priesthoood, such persons have learnt to find in their own consciences the springs of their own action, and hold the clue which can liberate them from the dreary labyrinth in which they have been led astray. It is with no small gratification that we find that in this instance the interest of ignorance has not been allowed to prevail. Rome has put forth her whole strength against the Queen's Colleges, and been utterly foiled in the encounter which she has wantonly provoked. They have thriven under her denunciations and flourished under her anathemas. In Gal way, the Dean of Residences, the officer to whom was intrusted the leligious instruction of the Roman Catholic pupils, has discontinued a triniotiation of whose good effects he had had the most flattering experience, and from whose continuance he anticipated the most beneficial results. The hierarchy obviously thought that the silencing of this useful instructor would be a means of deterring Roman Catholics from frequenting an institution thus placed under the ban of their religion. The report informs us, however, that the number of matriculated students in the present session is nearly double that ot the last— a significant commentary on the efficacy of priestly interierence. The reports from Cork and Belfast are also highly satisfactory. Here, then, we have the priesthood irretrievably committed to a system of policy from which the laity seem resolutely determined to dissent. The middle classes of Ii eland evince no disposition to reject the proffered boon of knowledge anJ enlightenment for the gratification of a priesthood which would fain involve its congregations in its own congenial element of darkness and ignorance. In the grave of O'Connell and the dungeon of Smith OBrien is buried that spit it of barren, meaningless political agitation which, under pretence of rendering Ireland formidable to England, has armed her suicidal hand with weapons to pierce her own bosom. It may be that the Queen's Colleges are destined to be the tomb of that no less pernicious clerical influence which, not content with dictation in matters of doctiine and discipline, has laboured only too successfully to bring within its jurisdiction and decide by its sacred authority the tenure of land, the election of representatives, and the choice of places of public instruction. Henceforth, we trust the Irish nation will look for advice neither to wordy demagogues nor intriguing priests, but will seekin its own convictions and opinions for that guidance •which those in whom it has hitherto put confidence have so notoriously failed to afford. It is easy to account for the aberrations of individuals. A Pope terrified into reaction, or a hieiarchy bullied into resistance, may promulgate any absurdity and enjoin any enormity. These are spectacles with which history, unhappily, makes us only too familiar ; but we should learn to distrust the progressive improvement of mankind if we could believe that a great nation, before whom good and and evil have been set, could be driven by passion, by cajolery, or by superstition, to prefer darkness to light and a curse to a blessing, This we believe and hope is not to be. The Irish nation has rejected the destiny which her priesthood bad marled out for her ; and whatever be the battle-field in which the pope would employ his power successfully to thwart the English Government, he must choose other ground than the question of National Education.