The Standard quotes what we said last week on the
" Catholic Hatred of Irish Protestantism ;" and, in reply to the observation that the Protestant religion is not to blame, but the system by which the Church is upheld in Ireland, says- " When our contemporary tells us, that the means by which the Church is upheld supply a solution to the horrid phenomena,' which it confesses, it speaks sa if another Omar, more successful than the former, had burned up all the books in the world. Was it the means by which a Protestant Church was up- held that suggested the crusade against the Albigensts—the massacre of St. Bartholomew—the fires of Smithfield—the dragonades in the most polished age of France—the massacres of Alva, in the most intelligent part of Eul and in the most splendid period of Spanish history—end the long roll of II • quiaition murders carried down almost to our own day? We might ask, also, whether it was the means by which the Protestant Church was supported that caused the gunpowder-plot in England, the Irish ina+sa.ne of 1641, or the later massacres of )798 and 1803? If such were the provocation, it is strange that the secret has lain hidden so long ; for we believe that this cause never was as signed before the Spectator made the discovery."
To this there is a brief, and, it seems to us, a conclusive reply—that the persecution and crimes to which the Standard refers, are riot to be charged upon the Catholic form of Christian faith, any more than the cabin.hunting, "driving," and tortures, by which the State Church in Ireland has been upheld, are fairly ascribable to Protestantism ; but that the union of the Church with the State, and the use which am- bitious men have made of religious bigotry to forward their personal and political ends, have always been the real cause of persecution. It was so in the days of Alva in the Netherlands, and of Lauderdale in Scotland. Such men are not restrained, nor really actuated by reli- gious motives ; and a sincerely religious persecutor misunderstands his faith and its precepts, be he Catholic or Protestant.
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