The Shropshire Examiner and all round the Wrekin advertiser. — 1874-06-27 (Wenlock, Shropshire, England)

IRELAND : HER HISTORY AND HER HOPES. INTRODITCTION.—(Continued.)  This was the way England sought to make the Reform:l6ou :Lttractive. The Reformation indeed,to despo'l raple b. scans of religion of such few r4;•..ts as their inva 'en had not seized by the sword, to trample a every feeling which characterises man, th !en ia bondage, 'cii and black as hell, e-..ery filealt.,. of the mind, to nickiurine heaven's creatures, and to call that !of heaven of which devils would ha.-e hmen ashamed, to , hold up a black stincking ecclesiastical carcass and call it the Reformation. Surely this was to "blur the grace and blush of modesty, to call virtue hypocrite, to take off the rose from the fair forehead of an innocent love and set a blister there, and to make sweet religion a rhapsody of words." But what could these people know of theßeformation, to them it was a word without meaning, save such meaning as afterwards became associated with it. To the Irish it was simply a name of evil omen, portending every species of barbarity. From what has been already said it will be gathered that in the breaking up of dark clouds of ignorance which during the middle ages had hung so thickly over Europe that few gleams of light found their way to Ireland. Of the labours of Wicliff, Huss, Luther, and Calvin this country knew nothing, nay, had scarcely so much as heard their names. The great men, of which this reforming century was so prolific, shed but little light over this benighted country even the printing press, so mighty for good, whose birth was the advent ofliberty, made known its presence in Ireland mostly by brutal proclamations, and the facility by which such enactments migh be spread. The only reason that was put before them why they should change their national faith was because the king so willed it, the king with whom they at the very time were struggling to keep their lands out of the hands of strangers and adventurers. Avery persuasive reason truly. Of the character of the men who were sent from England to put th 3 king's will before the people we have already shown, and the means they adopted, too, to indoctrinate them has also been made plain. If then such weapons as these were used to convert a nation, if the sword in one hand and the Bible in the other, as was advocated in the House of Commons was the best way known to convert a nation from the faith of its fathers, there need be no surprise that the Reformation made no progress in Ireland. It has been common, it is common even now, to ascribe the none progression of Ireland to her rejection of this Reformation. Would the Reformation have ploughed la r waste lands? Would it have removed the fetters from her commerce? Would it have mitigated the rapacious monopoly of her fertile acres? Utless these questions can be fully answered there is little to show that it would have been much to the bene. fit of Ireland to have adopted the principles of the Reformation. The mere uame by which an hierarchy is calls dis not much to the matter. The difference between a Bishops's hat anti a Cardinal's mitre is not great. But then it is said again that the religion of Ireland is one of tyranny and priestcraft. Let this reproach he carefully used, it is applicable to all our churches. It is not only unsupported, but unsupportable nonsense, to talk of the exclusive disposition of the Catholics to persecute. The Protestants have murdered, and torture!, and laid waste as much as the Catholics. Each party as it gained the upper hand, tried death as a remedy for heresy, and both parties 'nave tried in vain. Thousands were put to death under the rule of Henry