Some years elapsed, and the Rev. Tresham D. Gregg, of the Established Church, took up the polemical cudgels to demolish the redoubtable champion of the Romish Church. He was just such a man as his antagonist, vehement, loud voiced--of the _ad captandum_, knock-down-and-drag-out school. Although not acknowledged by the Church of England as the Goliath of its faith, yet there is no doubt of the secret exultation of its clergy at his success. The challenge was accepted, and for a fortnight the Rotunda of Dublin rang with the verbal blows of these doughty combatants. Victory poised her scales, the contest hung in the balance. At last, one afternoon, after the battle of the day was over, Gregg raised his mighty arm high in the air, and said "that on the next day, the secrets of the confessional would be the subject of the discourse, and warned the ladies, 'that no modest woman would appear, or could appear, while he revealed the secrets of that powerful instrument of the Romish Church.'" The consequences may be imagined. The hall was packed to overflowing by the gentler sex. Ladies of the Catholic persuasion, conscious of the inability of the orator to make his words good, flocked to hear his discomfiture. Those of the other persuasion were induced to come from a laudable curiosity. The argument, if argument it might be called, consisted on Gregg's part of that style which Poe has properly denominated "the awkward left arm of satire--_invective_." He had caught Father Tom at single stick and paid him off in his own way. There was of course no little allusion to indelicate matters. After the argument the Rev. Mr. Gregg had to be escorted to his lodgings by a troop of dragoons. But at the close of the debate he announced, that on the morrow the subject would be _continued_. But on the following day Father Tom did not appear. The victorious Gregg was cock of the walk; the judgment went by default. Whether any one among the speakers or listeners became better Christians after the controversy, is a question. It is doubtful whether Gregg or Father Tom made or lost a single convert to either faith. "Father Tom and the Pope" first saw the light in _Blackwood_, ten years after these controversies. It may have been written by Maginn, who was a good Catholic, but it may truly be said of him, that although he "loved the Church much, he loved fun more." As a work of mere wit it must take its place with some of the brightest efforts of Rabelais, of Montaigne, or of Pascal.