some such motive as this, the extraordinary anxiety exhibited by the present Whig government in carrying through their bill for the establishment of Diplomatic relations with Rome, at the very moment when the last fragment of temporal power was passing from the hands of the Pope. But whether this be so or not--whether this is a mere private crotchet, or a prepared scheme, to come forth in due season--we are perfectly satisfied that it will be met throughout the country with a righteous storm of indignation. The Protestantism of Britain has been its strength and its glory; and it was only when called upon to choose between that sacred principle and the hardly less revered one of loyalty, that our forefathers thought themselves justified in summoning an alien to the British throne. What cost us then both tears and blood is an operating principle now; and if, through the grace of God, we have seen order maintained and rebellion crushed at home, at a period when half of Europe is plunged in the horrors of anarchy, we do not fear the charge of bigotry, if we attribute our preservation as much to the religious establishments of the land, as to the free institutions which Protestantism has enabled us to maintain. Loyalty is not a thing to be bought: it is a spontaneous feeling, unpurchaseable at any price; and if the Irish Catholic clergy have it not now, the most liberal endowment will work no change in their political feelings. One of the arguments most commonly urged by those who advocate this system of endowment, is, we think, both erroneous in its assumption and weak in its application. They maintain that the Catholic clergy, if in the pay of the state, would have less power over the peasantry of Ireland than at present. Is that altogether a state of matters which it would be desirable to bring about? Would it be well to sap the influence of this moral police? There is not a Roman Catholic priest in Ireland at this moment who does not know, that were he to give open countenance to rebellion, he would not only be amenable to the laws of his country, but, under a firm executive government, would be selected as the earliest example. The situation of Ireland is such, that we can never calculate upon the loyalty of a large portion of its population. Centuries have rolled by, and still the Celtic race persist in being aliens from our own. We cannot tame them, cannot cultivate them, cannot win their hearts by any imaginable sacrifice. They persist in their cry of Ireland for the Irish, and will not see that the thing is as impossible as the re-establishment of the Saxon heptarchy, and, were it possible, would be tantamount to delivering them over to the horrors of a barbarian war. It is no use disguising the fact--we must deal with men as they are; and who can doubt that there does exist a great amount of rooted disaffection among the peasantry of Ireland? And now it is seriously proposed to cure that disaffection, by taking