Lord Cairns told the Irish Church Missions Society on 'Tuesday
that the only remedy which had never failed, and never -would fail, for such evils as those of Ireland, was the conver- sion of the people to the full and true Gospel,—a Gospel which they had not got at present, or had only got " in a very limited and imperfect form." That is true enough of the Irish, but it is equally true, we fear, of the English, who not unfrequently seem to us to be less Christians than pagans of somewhat moderated temper and more or less chastened desires. At all events, Lord Cairns' tendency to congratulate the Church Missions Society that the population of Dublin, swelled by the evictions in the country, and sent adrift in consequence of the un- settled state of society from their hereditary Church, are more open than ever to the process of Protestant conversion, does not strike us as showing much sobriety of mind. Considering that the loosened ecclesiastical bonds of which Lord Cairns spoke so hopefully, are rather bonds loosened by moral indifference to a religion held in common by Catholics and Protestants alike, than bonds loosened by moral revolt against the peculiar errors of the Papacy, we cannot agree with him that the despair of Catholics can be reasonably regarded as the special opportunity of Protestants.
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