Even where the principle is questioned, practice tends to conform thereto. Reluctantly and grudgingly conceded as a favour, religious toleration becomes part of the habitual attitude of mind at first of the more enlightened and then of ordinary men. The principle of religious liberty or equality is still disputed by the Church of Rome.(84) The doctrines of Gregory VII. and Innocent III. are still asserted as of old. The syllabus of Pius IX. condemns the principle of equality as enshrining an error not less pernicious because common; it is the vain attempt to equalise creeds incomparable with each other and radically different; such liberty is no better than liberty to err. That is the position taken up in the Papal Syllabus. But in modern times all churches, the Roman Catholic not excepted, have yielded, often insensibly and reluctantly, to the pressure of facts. The ideal condition may be domination of the church; the practical problem in adverse circumstances is how to make the best compromise. Vatican decrees notwithstanding, the powers which issue them cannot, and do not, press their claims as they once did. Immutable in doctrine, they are found to be adaptive in practice. Churches which retract nothing alter their practice; they do not escape the influence of the age and the country, Ireland not excepted, in which they work. Everywhere the tendency is towards religious equality; I find abundant evidence of it even in the policy of the Church of Rome. Many books have been written describing the recent increase of the pretensions of Papal absolutism. There exists, so far as I am aware, no complete history of the policy pursued by the Church of Rome in countries in which it cannot give full effect to its doctrines respecting the true connection between Church and State. Such a history would reveal the existence and exercise of a singularly adaptive power; the growth of a policy suitable for and acceptable in non-Catholic countries and under democratic rule. In the wonderfully rich system of the Canon law are devices suitable for all circumstances. The Church may promulgate a decree in one country and not in another; the Tridentine decrees at the close of some four centuries are not yet made universally obligatory. It may for centuries leave it uncertain whether a bull specially assertive of the power of the Church, is in force in a particular country. The doctrine of the Canon law as to the efficacy of customs, and particularly local customs, permits of variations in accordance with the necessities of time and place. _Semper eadem_, but elastic and always opportunist—such is the character of the actual policy of the Church;(85) and there is no reason to think that it will be otherwise in Ireland under popular government.