Archbishop McHale, " the Lion of the tribe of Judah,"
on the express invitation of Me, W. J. O'Neile Daunt, the President of the Home Rule Association, has written a letter (by no means for the first time) in favour of Home Rule, in which he says that• he has no recollection of any time in which he did not " rejoice in an Irish Parliament, or grieve at its destruction, or sigh for its restoration ;" that Ireland was robbed of its separate legisla ture " by such an extraordinary combination of fraud, of violence, and of cruelty as can scarcely be paralleled in the annals of any other people ;" and that O'Connell is gone to his " immortal reward" for unsuccessfully advocating the repeal of the Union. John, Archbishop of Tuam, has certainly some skill in rhetoric, but if his countrymen could but understand that the success of Home Rule, properly understood, means an Irish Republic, we- doubt his obtaining any considerable Irish vote for the measure, and what is more, we doubt his wishing it himself. The Church• would not willingly stand face to face with an Irish Republic, as the only representative of Conservative principles.
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