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CHAPTER V.

DR. MAGINN'S VIEWS OF CHURCH POLITY IN IRELAND-THE CHARITABLE BEQUESTS ACT-THE QUEEN'S COLLEGES-DIFFERENCES OF OPINION AMONG THE HIERARCHY ON THE COLLEGES ACT AS AM ENDED-ACCESSION OF THE WHIGS TO

POWER-THE

NEW

POPE-EPISCOPAL MEETINGS IN 1846-THE APPEAL ΤΟ ROMEOTHER EPISCOPAL MOVEMENTS-PROPOSED NATIONAL ADDRESS TO POPE PIUS IX.

DR. MAGINN'S system of church polity was, in some of its combinations, wholly his own. With Dr. Crolly and Dr. Murray, he favored and fostered the national schools; but he separated from them on the Charitable Bequests Act, and the subsequent scheme of academic education. A Derry editor, writing after his death, has said: "It has been to us an enigma that he who so largely patronized national schools within his parish and elsewhere, should have joined in the opposition to the Queen's Colleges, which are founded on precisely the same principles as those schools. If there be differ ences, in point of principle, between the two sets of institutions, by which the interests of particular creeds are to be effected, we confess that we cannot discover them."

The essential difference between the two institutions

a primary parochial school and a college controlled. by the State-seems to us clear enough. In the former, rudimental knowledge only was taught; in the latter, history, philosophy, geology, all studies which include views or questions of revelation, were to form the course. In the schools, the pastor was entitled to be a visitor, and if he chose, a patron; while the colleges were to be governed exclusively by their own superiors, appointed directly by the Crown, and subject only to the visitations of a royal commission. The Derry journalist continues his criticism in these words:

"We have sat down, not to compose an indiscriminate eulogy upon an eminent individual, but to express our candid sentiments with regard to him, as the most fitting tribute due to his worth. We would say, then, that it has occurred to us that, of late years, the scenes of misery which he had to witness, operating on his extreme sensibility, united to an erroneous view of the ability of government to relieve the whole wants of a famishing land, rendered him morbidly suspicious of government and its acts, and disposed him to concur with Dr. MacHale in his general views of ecclesiastical polity. One prominent trait in the Right Rev. Dr.'s character was a most intense feeling of nationality—a feeling which is the basis of patriotism, one of not the least bright and useful of human virtues; but it has been remarked by several persons, besides ourselves, that his nationality, associating itself too constantly with ancient griefs, inclined him to be harsh, at times, in judging whatever was English, and we can imagine that it veiled from his mind's eye what appears to us the undesirableness and the impracticability of a certain popular measure. There was no witness examined here by the Devon Commission, whose evidence gave more satisfaction than Dr. Maginn's; and we have reason to think that his belief then was that by imperial legislation the country might be brought to a satisfactory condition. Unfortunately, there is a tardiness in that legislation which does not suit Celtic impatience. By some of his friends it was lamented that, in politics, he assumed the

attitude which latterly he did, but we presume that it had the approbation of many more. No one, however, could suspect the perfect sincerity and disinterestedness of the course which he took. It is the privilege of every man to impugn the soundness of opinions from which he dissents; but no man of a well-ordered mind would deny honor to another on account of the depth and strength of his convictions."

It is certain, from his correspondence, that he had decided against the Bequests Act and the new colleges, as he did in most other matters of conduct, on independent grounds. It nowhere appears that he had any personal intercourse with the Archbishop of Tuam before his consecration; the opposite, indeed, seems implied in his letters of that time. With the Bishop of Meath, Dr. Cantwell, one of the best and wisest of his high order; he was in frequent communication, from the time he was nominated for the administratorship. Through him, and through his old Monaghan classmate, Dr. McNally of Clogher, he was kept informed of the views of the Prelates who acted with Dr. McHale, but he did not catch up his opinions from his correspondents. While humble as a monk and open to advice as any child, the fruitfulness and vigor of his own mind, naturally led him to take decided steps in advance, even of his intimate associates. We shall see additional evidences of this before we close the narrative.

In opposition to "the Bequests Act" of 1844, we find in Dr. Maginn's handwriting the resolutions adopted by the Bishop and Clergy of Derry.

CHARITABLE BEQUESTS ACT.

At a meeting of the Catholic Bishop and Clergy of the diocese of Derry, held in St. Columb's on Wednesday, January 22, 1845, to tak into consideration the Charitable Bequests Act and the Concordat, said to be in contemplation between the courts of Rome and England, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted:

1. Resolved, That at this eventful crisis, when the civil and religious liberties of the Irish Roman Catholics are being attacked by all the craft and cunning of British diplomacy, it is imperative on all, clergy and people, to express their decided hostility to such baneful and ineidious policy, and publicly avow their determination to resist, by every legal and constitutional means, any attempt made or to be made, no matter from what quarter it proceeds, to invade their ecclesiastical inmunities or curtail those natural rights which they justly deem imprescriptible and inalienable.

2. Resolved, That having duly considered the Charitable Bequests Act in all its bearings, in the benefits it pretends to confer and the evils it purposes to inflict, and maturely and impartially weighed the arguments put forth for and against that measure by its ablest defenders and opponents, we have at length come to the conclusion, that it does not contain a single clause conferring an unmixed good, whilst it clearly purports to inflict distinct and positive evils. Its benefits are delusive—its disadvantages real. The commission, from the manner of its appointment, cannot be trustworthy, depending for its constitution on the honesty of the minister of the day; its most conspicuous element is the old leaven of ascendancy; the majority, even at the present moment, includes the ill-omened names of the sworn libellers of our faith and most inveterate enemies of our freedom. Under such a tutelage, where the least even of our civil liberties would be insecure, Catholic charities could not be safe. The very nature of its duties. supposes a violation of Episcopal rights. The most revered and sanctified of Catholic institutions are directly attacked by this Act, and their extinction insured. Justice and charity, so necessary to the dying penitent, it arrests and binds in its legal fetters. It insults and calumniates the Irish priesthood, even in the awful ministration of their holy rites at the bedside of the expiring Christian. This Act, in a word, we denounce as an old penal law, dressed up in a new garb—a rusty weapon drawn from the timeworn armory of the Star Chamber, polished, edged and fashioned anew, in the ministerial smithy, to suit

the taste and temper of the enlightened times we live in, and to insidiously stab religion in its most vital parts-its charities.

3. Resolved, That the petition now read-a petition for the repeal of said iniquitous Act-be forthwith signed by the Catholic Bishop and clergy of the diocese of Derry, and forwarded to Daniel O'Connell, Esq., M. P., for presentation in the House of Commons, and to Lord Camoys for presentation in the House of Lords.

4. Resolved, That we recognize with feelings of heartfelt gratitude, the finger of God, in the prescrvation of the life of Daniel O'Connell, to detect and expose the mischievous schemes of the enemies of our country and creed; and that we hereby pledge ourselves, in the temple and before the altar of our Redeemer, to stand by him, through good report and evil report, in the face of foreign and domestic foes, and to assist him with all the zeal, temper and Spirit which the Gospel inspires in the cause of suffering humanity, in every legal and constitutional effort he may make to secure our holy religion against the wiles of its enemies, or to restore the rights and redress the wrongs of the ever faithful but deeply injured people of Ireland.

5. Resolved, That we have heard with alarm that a concordat between the courts of Rome and England was in contemplation. Convinced of the evil consequences which resulted from similar negociations to the liberties of the Catholic church in other countries, we cannot view, without strong feelings of apprehension, any proceeding having a tendency to affect our ecclesiastical liberties, and that we hereby enter our solemn protest against any concordat, unless it be solely for commercial or international purposes, which may directly or indirectly infringe on the usages, customs or immunities of the Catholic Church in Ireland, and in the face of heaven declare, that we will consider it a conscientious duty to resist, by all justifiable means, any such aggressions on our holy religion.

6. Resolved, That however uncongenial it may be to our feelings as His ministers, who said, "My kingdom is not of this world," to be in any manner mixed up in matters purely temporal, such is the anomalous condition of Ireland, with nearly three millions of her people the victims of a misrule-conceived in bigotry and still fostered by the most bitter sectarian prejudices, in a state of utter destitution and misery shocking to humanity, and making the lot of the negro slave enviable-it would be inconsistent with our duties, bound as we are to them by every tie, divine and human, not to use those weapons which

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