The Sun.
London, England, 1867-03-23 00:00:00

Francis Blackburne has inscribed his honoured
name in the annals of all our highest tribunals."
The truth is, Mr. Blackburne ought not to have left
the easy position he occupied as Lord Justice of
Appeal. He did it because Lord Derby felt it ex-
pedient to yield to the opposition offered to the
appointment of Mr. Brewster.
Dr. Moriarty, Bishop of Kerry, has been rather
a favourite with the Conservatives of this country
on account of the energy with which he has been
accustomed to denounce Fenianism; but he has now
astounded them by an elaborate address, in which he
no less energetically denounces the Establishment
as the cause of popular discontent. Boli,-.lving, from
what I know of the minds of the Roman Catholic
people, that this is the most correct representation
of the light in which thelEstablishment is regarded
that has yet been given in this country,aud that the
old war of races will soon rage again about this for-
tress of Protestant ascendancy, I send the principal
portion of this remarkable manifesto, issued by one
of the most moderate of the Roman Catholic
Bishops. Having made some general remarks on
the subject of religious endowments and their law-
fulness, the Bishop proceeds :--" But, whatever
their force or conclusiveness may be, one thing is
certain, that there can be no peace or prosperity in
this land until we all enjoy complete religious
equality. Whether this is to be effected by levelling
up or by levelling down it is absolutely necessary to
make an end of this last remnant of ascendancy.
This thesis is so evident to us that it does not ad-
mit of serious discussion. Its truth has been long
since acknowledged by our greatest statesmen. The
nations of Europe look with amazement upon a prin-
ciple that bears, and upon a Government that main-
tains, in this age of freedom and civilisation an in-
justice unparalleled in the annals of tyranny. This
injustice is the cause of that grievous disaffection
which overspreads the land. We are not believers
in the chances of rebellion. I'Ve never believed for a
moment that Fenianism would succeed in revolu-
tionising the country. We denounced it as an Ame-
rican swindle ; a traffic by dissolute and dishonest
knaves upon the home-love of that noble and gene-
rous population of Irish emigrants who are spread
over the United States. Yet Fenianism, with all its
falsehood, with all its braggart cowardice, and with
that hatred of religion which marked its every utter-
ance, found sympathy and raised strange hopes in
the Irish poor ; and, unfortunately, the Irish poor
means the Irish people. The domestic virtues of our
people, their horror of crime and outrage, their
gentle and too humble character, their habits and
training, which leavethem totally unacquainted with
the use of arms or the ways of violence, render revo-
lution impossible for them. For the upper classes of
Catholics emancipation has been a reality. They
appreciate the blessing, now so rare in the world, of
living under a government which has the great at-
tributes of permanency and power. They know the
value of that freedom which leaves all good men to
follow the bent of theirgoodness, and which restrains
and punishes all evil-doers. Hence they submit to
the insult of ascendancy for the sake of the blessings
they enjoy, and they wait in hope for the day when
the work of justice will be completed in perfect re-
ligious equality. It is not so with the millions for
whom emancipation has had no practical or appre-
ciable result. For them the past still lives in the pre-
sent; they think they are an oppressed race. Eng-
land is for them an enemy's country. Patriotism,
which elsewhere means a devoted love of the laws
and institutions of one's country, here means hatred.
of them. Political sense is all awry. Men live
in the hope of what they call deliverance of
their native land. Hence a dreamy, unreal, dis-
contented existence, directly opposed to the spirit
of industry and enterprise. Like the Athenians
asking in the streets, What news ?is Philip dead?'
we have a people expecting good fortune from some
unforeseen chance, or from the possible ruin of the
power which they consider the cause of their misery.
Now, is there any patent wrong which can account
for this most unhappy state of national feeling ?
There is one, and that is the Church Establishment.
This is the clear proof of an unjust ascendancy still
maintained by the conquering nation. This makes
the Catholic Irishtnan believe that be is ruled as of old
for the benefit of a few English settlers ; that he
must even pay for their sermons and their sacra-
ments ; that he must provide not only for their
earthly wants by the sweat of his brow, but that he
must smooth for them the road to Heaven. Take
this wrong away ; causes of complaint may still
remain, but they will be such as are to be found
among the most loyal; they will not furnish just
grounds for national antipathy or revolutionary
longings. The peasantry may continue to complain
of the laws of tenancy; the clergy may complain of
mixed education ; we may still agitate for wiser
legislation in these matters, as the English them-
selves agaitated for Reform ; but neither these
grievances, nor any other that we suffer, indicate
the oppression of one nation by another. When
those who defend the policy of English rule in this
country think they have answered every other
question of the disaffected, one remains unanswered
and unanswerable—namely, the Church Establish-
ment. If this disaffection were merely a political
evil its cure would be no business of ours; but it is
a great moral evil. It engenders a most dangerous
state of conscience. This disaffection is the cause
of that rancour and discontent and ill-humour
which prevail so universally. If we could take
from the writings and speeches of public men, from
the letters and editorial articles of newspapers, all
the expressions of disapproval, all the manifes-
tations of bitterness, we should leave very little
to be read. The prevailing tone is one of anger.
If, perchance, a voice is raised in kindliness, in
praise, even in apology, it is thought to be the
voice of a sycophant. It is that note of indig-
nation to which alone the public ear seems
attuned. Hence the absence, even where we should
most expect to find them, of meekness and humi-
lity, without which there can be neither social hap-
piness nor solid virtue. This permanent disaffec-
tion endangers the purity of faith as well as the
rectitude of moral feeling. In the present circum-
stances of the case, and most probably in all future
circumstances, it would be most unwise to change
the system on which the clergy now receive their
personal support. We must remain as we are, de-
pendent on our people for food and raiment. We
cannot afford to break those ties which bind us to
our flocks, and our flocks to us. So far the volun-
tary system must stand now, and God grant it may
stand for ever ! We dare not condemn endow-
ments. If we did, the Church would condemn us.
But we believe that where the voluntary system can
be established the Church will be more flourishing."
But he sees no objection to the allocation of a por-
tion of the endowment for the maintenance of the
religious establishment of the country, the building
and repair of churches and diocesan schools—the
expenses of which at present are a heavy burden
upon the people :—" The allocation we propose, be-
sides exempting the Catholic laity from the burden
of a double taxation, would make the Catholic feel
that he attained social and religious equality by
giving splendour and dignity to his Church."

His Excellency the Lord-Lieutenant has ap-
pointed the Rev. Charles William Russell, D.D , Presi-
dent of Maynooth College, a governor and guardian of the
National Gallery of Ireland, in the room of the late Mr.
William Dargan.
LITTLE WATCHES.—Marvellous on account of the
quantity of mechanism compressed within small
spaces. One of these is about the size of an almond. At
the first of our Great Exhibitions the Swiss exhibited a
watch only three-sixteenths of au inch iu diameter, inserted
in the top of a pencil-case ; it showed hours, minutes,
seconds,
and the day of the month. An English specimen,
the size of a threepenny-piece, was a giant to it. The
' Annual Register," about a century ago, told of a watch
Only the fifty-fourth part of an inch in diameter ; but this,
we suspect, must be a mistake for fifty-four hundreds of an
inch—a very different affair. Arnold presented to George
the Third an exquisite watch of the size of a silver penny,
set in a ring ; it consisted of a hundred and twenty separate
parts, which weighed less than six pennyweights. And
so intricate were the works that Arnold had to make tools
himself before he could make the watch. The King was
so delighted with the work that he sent Arnold five hun-
dred guineas. When the Czar of Russia heard of this, he
offered Arnold a thousand guineas to make a similar one
fur him ; but this the artist refused, determined that hie
own sovereign's watch should be unique.—Dickens's "All
the Year Round,"