there be any who, resting, as many in the last century did rest, on the Theism of the old world, and on the lights and laws of nature, affirm their probity and their allegiance under the sanctions which trained the prisca virtus of the Roman Commonwealth, of such men, under the obligations of the four cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude, enforced by the dictates of natural conscience and the eternal laws of morals, we feel sure. Their build and make is natural and human, in conformity with the common sense and patriotic traditions of the Christian civilisation of Europe, by which they were created, and by which they are sustained, in a higher moral life than a defective belief can account for.

And such, three months ago, was the mixed foundation of the British Empire, a mingled system of gold and silver, brass and iron, and the good honest clay of the order of human nature as God made it, with its rights and laws, like our English mother earth, in which our secular oaks root deep and outlive generations and dynasties, but not the monarchy of England.

Thus far I have heard from my forefathers, and understood the English Constitution. It has a basis of two strata, both divine: the one the Law Christian, the other the law of nature.

It knows nothing of a race of sophists who, professing to know nothing about God, and law and right and wrong, and conscience, and judgment to come, are incapable of giving to Christian or to reasonable men the pledges which bind their moral nature with the obligations necessary for the command of fleets and armies, and legislatures and commonwealths. Men will not entrust to them the august and awful powers of Parliament described by Lord Coke. The dearest and tenderest and most vital interests of life and home and welfare depend upon legislation. Ten thousand times rather would I vote for an upright member of the Hebrew race, whose commonwealth stands in history as the noblest and most human, as well as the most divine, government of man, than for the young gentlemen who cannot make up their mind whether God exists or no, or whether in the body they adorn and pamper there be a soul which will have to answer for all they have culpably done, and all they have culpably failed to know.

When Parliament, to meet the scruples of those who so firmly believed in the Majesty of God that they doubted the lawfulness of adjuring Him by way of oath, relieved them by accepting a declaration, it rested its act on its profound belief of the reverence and fidelity of the Society of Friends to the Divine Lawgiver whom they feared to offend.

But let no man tell me that this respectful confidence is to be claimed by our Agnostics.

Much less by those, if such there be, who, sinking by the inevitable law of the human mind below the shallowness and timidity of

Agnosticism, plunge into the great deep of human pride, where the light of reason goes out, and the outer darkness hides God, His perfections, and His laws.

No law of England has entrusted the powers of legislation to such men. Parliament has never yet weighed and voted the following resolution: 'That the British Empire, having ceased to be Catholic, ceased to be Christian, and ceased even to be Theistic, has descended below the level of the order of nature and the political civilisation of the cultured and imperial races of the pagan world.' We Englishmen still believe that it rests upon a level which the old world in all its demoralisation never reached. The French pantomime of the last century voted out and voted in the Supreme Being.' Delicta majorum immeritus lues. The French people of to-day have no tradition and no basis. It was one of their own wisest sons who said Sans Dieu point de société.' Where God and the unity of His divine law cease to reign, there can be no commonwealth.

3

But Parliament has never yet made such a law. There still stands on our Statute-book a law which says that to undermine the principles of moral obligation is punishable by forfeiture of all places of trust; 3 but there is no law which says that a man who publicly denies the existence of God is a fit and proper person to sit in Parliament, or a man who denies the first laws of morals is eligible to make laws for the homes and domestic life of England, Scotland, and Ireland. A by-vote like that which shut the door of the House of Commons against Horne Tooke because he was a clergyman has furtively opened the door to one whose notoriety relieves me of an odious duty. But Parliament has not yet confirmed that by-vote, and the moral sense of this great people has not yet been asked. And yet it has been heard; and I trust that there is still left in our statesmen at least the probity and the courage of Roman senators. One byvote of a party majority, if not reversed, will lower for ever the basis of the British Empire. The evil it has wrought would be complete. It has laid down for ever that for the highest offices of man-namely, the making laws for man-it is no longer necessary for a man to be Catholic or Christian, or Jew or Theist. He may publicly deny and profane all these things. He may deny the existence of God, and therefore of divine law, and therefore of all law except the human will and human passion. But as yet no statute of the Legislature has declared such men to be eligible to Parliament.

If, however, this by-vote be accepted, Lord Burghley's forecast will be on the horizon. England will begin to be destroyed by its Parliament.

HENRY EDWARD, Cardinal Archbishop.

9 & 10 Will. III. c. 32. Kerr's Blackstone, iv. 31, 35, note.

PEASANT PROPRIETORS AT HOME.

DURING a recent visit of some weeks to portions of the distressed districts of the north-west and west of Ireland in company with two other gentlemen, several of the glebe-land farms, which have been recently sold to small proprietors by the Church Commissioners, were visited. Public attention has recently been so much drawn to the question of peasant proprietorship, and is so likely to be still more seriously turned to it, that I think it may not be without interest to place on record a short account of these very interesting visits, which formed a pleasant contrast to the disheartening work we were chiefly engaged upon.

The glebe lands first visited were in the county of Donegal, a few miles from Dunfanaghy. They consisted of three farms, the sizes, purchase-money, and other particulars being as under:-

No. 1 had purchased the tenant-right eighteen years ago (worth 30l. to 40%.), at which time not more than one-fourth of the land now under cultivation was reclaimed. When he bought the fee simple from the Commissioners in 1876, he had elected to pay the remaining purchase-money in five years, and has not now more than 30l. to pay, after which the farm will be his own freehold. His delight in speaking of this was unbounded: Only to think that I have only 30l. to pay in May next, and 201, next Allhallows Eve, and then I shall be free, free from the landlords,' and again and again he repeated 'free from the landlords for ever come next Allhallows Eve.' He pays 12s. a year poor's rate and 18s. for county rate. The legal expenses of the conveyance were 6l., nearly a year's rent of the land. This he felt to be a hardship. As to the condition of the farm, his fields are well fenced with good stone walls, built after he bought the land, since which also he had reclaimed and drained a large portion of the land now

Much of this was formerly mere mountain or bog land.

under cultivation. His two sons were hard at work digging side by side with much energy upon a piece of bog-land which they were adding to the cultivated land. Much of the latter had already been dug, and was ready for the crops. He had three cows and a horse or pony. He had six children, the two sons seen at work, about twentythree or twenty-four years of age, two girls in the house, and two boys away at work, one in Scotland, and the other in the east of Ulster. When asked whether his elder sons were married, as is usual with young men of their ages, he replied with emphasis, 'No! and I tell them I don't mean them to marry yet. I'm not going to let them make themselves miserable for life.' The two who were from home, he said, he intended should find permanent employment where they are at work, and possibly one of those at home would also have to go; and when asked whether the son who remained at home would be allowed to divide the farm with him, he replied, "No! I won't let it be made a bit smaller; I'm not going to let us fall back into the misery which comes from these small farms around.' His sense of the position he had arrived at, and his determination not to allow his family to lose it by subdivision and too early marriage, were very striking. He said the people around him could not live on the little holdings of four or six acres they usually rented, and acknowledged that even without the paying of rents they could not bring up a family upon them. Not that he did not think it would be a delightful thing for anyone to possess his own land; if, he said, he had only just a place to lie down in, it would be something to know that it was his own, and he kept perpetually recurring to the fact, I've paid all but 301., and just 10l., and then 20%., and then I've nothing more to do with the landlords for ever.'

Nos. 2 and 3, Sweeney and Gallagher, had elected, when buying their farms, to pay off the balance of the purchase-money owing, in ten instead of five years. This, with the interest, amounted to 91. a year.

Sweeney was from home, and his house, though very superior to the small tenants around, was not a model dwelling. In addition to the family, two pigs and a pony shared the house. But there was a well-to-do air about it, and the spinning-wheel was at work, and the house fairly clean. Some of the women of the family were at home; and if nothing else was clearly ascertained, this certainly was, viz., their sense of delight in being the owners of the soil-peasant proprietors, in fact. As in the former case, the thought of the time when they would be clear from any payment to the Commissioners was the all-absorbing one. They almost jumped about the room as they exclaimed, Yes! there's just 91. a year to pay for ten years, and then we're free from the landlords-free from the landlords.'

No. 3, Gallagher, the other purchaser, was not seen, but was stated to be doing equally well. He had made very considerable improvements, and added to the quantity of land under cultivation,

The very strong anti-landlord feeling entertained by these people must be to a large extent owing to their surroundings, for the rents they had paid before becoming purchasers were certainly not exorbitant.

Of these surroundings it may be well to say a few words, as it may perhaps assist in understanding the intensity of their animosity to landlords. The contrast between their condition and that of the little tenants around could hardly be greater-comparative comfort and progress in the one, and wretchedness and beggary in the other. The neighbouring estate is one which attracted considerable attention a few years ago, from the circumstance that the owner, a clergyman, was shot at by the tenants' had his teeth extracted,' as we were told, the shot having entered his mouth. This property was purchased through the Encumbered Estates Court some years ago, and a revaluation made. The rents were raised-doubled,' it is said—and, what was a still greater offence, the right of the tenants to pasturage over a large extent of mountain land was taken away. Thus the tenants were mulcted in two ways-rents raised, and less ground for their stock to run over. I know nothing of the merits of the case, but it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the rents were unduly raised, and it is certain that the taking away of the immemorial communal right of grazing on the mountain lands is felt to be a grievous injustice. The people in this townland were terribly destitute; as we went from house to house, it was pitiable to see their condition. Many were in rags, and many without bedding; filth, squalor, and misery abounded; they had no stores of food left, and were dependent on the small supply of Indian meal which the Relief Committee could distribute. Some who were not on the list appealed piteously for assistance to the members of the Relief Committee who went round with us. The lands were ill-cultivated, and the people, without a stimulus to exertion, were depressed and dispirited. Although some years have elapsed since the rents were raised, several of the people referred to it, and told of the high rents and the injustice done to them and the ruin caused by it. A greater contrast to the little purchasers can hardly be conceived.

It may be well very briefly to notice another instance where glebe lands were sold, which has led to some newspaper controversy, and has unjustly been quoted as showing that the attempt to form a peasant proprietorship has failed. These were situated about thirty miles south of the above, not far from Dunglow, co. Donegal. They were formerly held by twelve very small tenants, whose total rental was about 451., varying from 218. to 6l., and one of 117. With two exceptions the purchase-money was under 100l., varying from 197. to 851., and the higher ones were 1297. and 2097., and averaged about 19 years' purchase.

The tenants, it appears, were too poor to find the money, and applied to some one in the neighbourhood, who stated that he could