AN ULSTERMAN FOR IRELAND
have taken the lead in this—especially those Catholic countries which have got their revolutions over. In France and Belgium complete religious equality has long been acknowledged. In Italy, the moment they saw Austria's back turned, complete religious equality was proclaimed. Whenever any of the German States becomes its own master religious equality is the first thing the people insist upon. In truth, religious penalties and disqualifications are now nowhere to be found save as the worn-out tools and engines of some old tyranny or other. The people have no interest in them at all, see no meaning in them, and desire, above all things, to have done with them for ever. It may be laid down as a rule, admitting of no exception, that in these later ages, wherever the sovereignty,of the People is established, there religious ascendancy can stand no longer.
But the reason why your grand masters and grand chaplains endeavour to represent the national movement in Ireland as a movement for religious ascendancy is tolerably plain. It is merely to disguise from you the true meaning and drift of it. "Repeal," they tell you, involves a religious war, and penal laws against Protestants and seizure of forfeited estates. But I tell you that no Repealer in Ireland cares a rush whether you admit seven sacraments or only two; no sane Repealer ever thinks of the forfeited estates, or would dare to propose in any assembly of three that title to landed property should be distributed on such pretext.
Neither does "Repeal" simply mean the revocation of the Act of Legislative Union
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